


Drowsy Science

by London9Calling, shinealightrose



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Collaboration, M/M, Science Experiments, Tags May Change, Time Travel, historical-ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-28 15:08:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 44,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11420547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/London9Calling/pseuds/London9Calling, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/shinealightrose
Summary: Minseok and Lu Han meet in a gilded ballroom turned laboratory, but that is not the strangest part of the story. A collaborative Xiuhan fic from London9Calling and Shinealightrose.





	1. The Beginning of the End (by London9Calling)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a project we have both wanted to do for awhile, so here it is. The concept is that we co-write a fic, basically torturing each other with cliff hangers and surprises that we need to write out or on from. Hopefully you enjoy, we certainly will :)
> 
> -India (London9Calling) and Sara (Shinealightrose)
> 
> Project Rules:
> 
> -We alternate writing chapters
> 
> -Each chapter is between 1k and 2k words.
> 
> \- We update at our leisure
> 
> \- No plot discussions between writers!! AKA this is on-the-fly writing, we don’t have an outline.
> 
> Note- Warnings will be added if applicable. No clue on what rating this will have. The title is a blind word pick between the two of us haha. 

Minseok sighed, a sad and forlorn noise. He traced his finger along the glass, wishing nothing more than to touch the beads of water that slid down the outside of the window. Staring past the raindrops, towards the winding drive, he considered that the earth was reflecting his sadness. Dark storm clouds hung overhead, the flash of lightning periodically illuminated the overgrown gardens of the manor house. It was like the world knew how forlorn he was, how the sadness clung to him no matter how he tried to shake it off. 

“You rang, sir?” a soft voice called from the far side of the room. The familiar, gentle tone somehow bristling his nerves. 

“Yixing, did you do what I asked of you?” Minseok didn’t turn away from the window, his hand still lingering on the cool glass.

“About the sir, sir?” Yixing, his faithful manservant, looked for confirmation. 

Minseok rolled his eyes. What else would he be asking about?! Sometimes he swore Yixing was dense, too honest and scatterbrained to follow along with his lofty goals. “Yes, about the sir.”

“Yes, of course. He is waiting for you in your laboratory,” Yixing informed him. 

“Very good.” Minseok removed his hand from the window. Holding his hand up he flexed his fingers, making a fist and then releasing it. “Does he understand what happened?”

“No, sir. I don’t believe that he does,” Yixing confirmed. 

“Is he afraid?” Minseok queried. He could guess that the man was terrified, they usually were once they were brought to him. 

“No, sir. He is in good spirits.”

How very odd, to not be racked with fear in that situation. “I believe I should go greet him, if he is in high spirits.”

“Very well, sir. Very well.”

  
  
  


Minseok nodded towards the portraits as he passed, giving a cursory greeting to his ancestors. The long gallery was littered with the artwork, their stoic expressions watching him, observing what their dynasty had become. 

They were once the mightiest family in the land, with an estate that spanned three counties, not to mention their subsidiary homes and city mansions. The very sound of their last name was enough to make even royalty bow down to their will. Centuries they existed this way, revered far and wide. But now...now….

Minseok knew it affected his grandfather and his father, he couldn't be certain what exact generation it started with. The curse, the reason their surname fell into obscurity, may have gone back much further than Minseok could have ever guessed. Years had passed since the last time he tried to decipher the beginning of the end, the last time he failed yet again. 

The rain was coming down in sheets now, pounding against the floor to ceiling arched windows. Minseok resisted the impulse to stop and watch, knowing he had to see the new arrival sooner rather than later. 

His laboratory was in a central part of the manor house, in the room that had once acted as the gilded ballroom. The space once hosted royalty, nobility and now...now it hosted Minseok’s best hope. His family’s  _ only hope _ . 

The parquet floors still existed as did the plaster and gilding. It gave his workspace a bizarre appearance -- lavishness meeting practicality. The hint of what was and the promise of what could be. 

Minseok’s heels clicked on the polished floors. Yixing still insisted that the wood was shined, kept spotless, no matter what the room was used for currently. Fifteen wide steps and the lord of the manor was facing his guest, gazing at his bored expression, curious how he remained so calm. The man leaned against a worktable, arms folded against his chest. Had he finally selected the right person?

The man stared at Minseok in turn, warm brown eyes raking over him. Minseok thought he looked younger than the age he had been told. He was thin, of average height, not terribly imposing. Minseok supposed his face was charming, pretty perhaps. Disarming, he decided, was the appropriate term.

“Are you Lu Han of the Royal Geographic Society?” Minseok asked, knowing full well that he was. 

“Yes. And you are Kim Minseok, or so your servant informed me,” Lu Han responded. 

“Indeed.” Minseok was not one to hold back when there was work to be done, wasn’t one to use allusions when he could get right to the point. “I need you to kill someone for me.”

A flicker of emotion, of surprise perhaps, showed in Lu Han’s face before his expression returned to being tightly controlled. “Who?”

Minseok smiled. So Lu Han wasn’t going to do what the others had done, asking why, protesting the idea, lecturing him on the morality of murder.

“I am not entirely certain who,” Minseok answered honestly. “But you will know when you meet them.”

Lu Han nodded, a gesture that seemed to indicate he was mulling over the request. 

Minseok observed the man, noting his mannerisms. He had first learned of Lu Han through the periodicals Yixing brought him, the serialized account of Lu Han’s trek to reach the south pole capturing the adventurous imagination of the populous for months. After Lu Han returned, unsuccessful in his expedition but famous in his own right,  he set off for parts unknown, exploring, cataloging, keeping the excitement of the everyman alive. Hero is what some people called him. 

“If I succeed, what will be my reward?” Lu Han broke the silence.

“What is it that you want?” It was a deal Minseok had made before. Long ago he had learned that it was best to let them state their desired reward instead of telling them. 

“I want you to marry me,” Lu Han answered without missing a beat.

Minseok tensed. “What?”

“I want you to marry me,” Lu Han repeated. “I know you aren’t married, I asked your servant. I lack a respectable lineage, if I marry you I will have it.”

“I do not intend to marry,” Minseok responded. It was the first request that had made him uncomfortable. 

“Then I do not intend to kill someone for you.” Lu Han started to walk towards the door of the laboratory. “Now if you do not have any further business, I wo--”

Minseok balled his hands into fists, digging his nails into the skin of his palms. “Alright. I agree.”

Lu Han stopped in his tracks. “Very good. Then I shall help you.”

Dread pooled in Minseok’s stomach at what he had just agreed to. If he wasn’t so desperate, if Lu Han didn’t seem like the one who could help him…Inconsequential details, Minseok reminded himself. Lu Han hadn’t succeeded yet, he shouldn't worry until the reward became a promise. 

“We need to get started, time is of the essence,” Minseok informed his new business partner, walking to the far end of the ballroom. 

“What do we need to do?” Lu Han queried, following after Minseok.

“I need to affix this machine to you, to ready you for your task.” Minseok began to fiddle with the large metal contraption that dominated one end of the ballroom.

“What is this machine?” Lu Han asked, stopping to observe Minseok’s work.

Minseok, head turned away from Lu Han while he fiddled with the contraption, smiled. This was the second part of the deal that frightened people, the second moment of panic after the murder request. He had learned what not to do. “It is better that you know little of its functions in the beginning. Wait, and everything will be clear.”

Minseok turned to look at Lu Han, waiting for him to protest and try to escape like all the others. 


	2. Deal with a Devil

Lu Han cleared his throat, staring at the machine. His hands fidgeted, but he wrung them quickly together and hid them behind his back. In two ways at least, the evening wasn't going as planned. For one he had not expected the gentleman to agree to his request. For a nobleman, even one whose family history was somewhat decayed, marriage with a common adventurer like Lu Han was entirely beneath him. Minseok's agreement gave Lu Han an edge. He was that desperate. But secondly, Lu Han had never heard about any kind of machine...

He peered around the room. The machine Minseok had indicated was one of a variety of devices, only a few of which Lu Han recognized. Scattered between them were long tables steeped with many smaller instruments of research, microscopes and beakers, and a small cage with one very large, white mouse. 

"You are a chemist? Or a physicist?" Lu Han asked. 

"A little of both." Minseok smiled. 

He had his hand on the large machine which he pat almost fondly. Lu Han saw that it was built not quite as tall as himself, but with a bench and room for a man to sit. The entire thing was at an incline and included arm rests and head supports. Throw a cushion on there and it might actually be comfy, he thought. On the other hand, metal wires in a brilliant, electric blue lined these supports up and down, belying this vain hope. Lu Han coughed again, then he gave a return smile. As one adventurer to another kind entirely, he would call this man's bluff.

"So what am I to do? Shall I sit? Is it human safe or have you tested it before on..." he looked around, "the rat?"

Minseok's smile quavered a little as he followed Lu Han's gaze. "My rat, a test subject? Oh no, no, of course not. Baekhyun is my pet. I will introduce the two of you later. In the meantime, sit here a moment so I can verify it'll fit your parameters."

With only a few seconds' hesitation, Lu Han sat as instructed. The metal seat was cold even through his clothes. He inhaled slowly and leaned back, arms resting in their place, head uncomfortably positioned. He exhaled. Minseok stood over him and made a series of hums as he measured how well Lu Han fit the space. His legs were cramped, but after pulling a series of levers, he could stretch them out. Breathing in slow again, he rested his eyes above himself. The entire contraption was open on both sides but a low overhand blocked his view of the ceiling. He had a brief feeling of claustrophobia before turning his head and looking left. Minseok was fitting a makeshift helmet over his head. Several of the blue wires hung loose until Minseok attached them one by one above and around Lu Han's head, chest and arms. Several stood unconnected when he was done but Minseok ignored them. He stood back and observed, his eyes everywhere at once but without looking at him directly. Lu Han stared, a little pensive and quite a little nervous.

But then Minseok was done. He pulled the wires free so Lu Han could move his limbs.

"As I thought. With a few adjustments it will fit perfectly. We'll begin tomorrow." 

Lu Han blinked as Minseok clapped his hands. At once the manservant who had escorted Lu Han here appeared. 

"Yixing, take my guest to his rooms. Have him changed into something... a little more suitable for dinner? Then show him to the dining hall. We'll have a feast, you and I," he said addressing Lu Han, "for there is much to talk about."

"Like our impending marriage?" Lu Han could not resist saying. He stood up from the machine and awkwardly stretched his limbs.

The smile on Minseok's face dropped automatically. He grimaced then made a curt nod. "Among other things. Lu Han, I'll bid you goodbye until suppertime. We meet soon."

 

 

 

When he'd come in, Lu Han had seen only the entryway, then the grand hall before being shown into the ballroom which it seemed had long been used for Minseok's laboratory. Of course, prior to being escorted like a privileged guest, Lu Han had been accosted outside of his own home, greeted imperiously by a coachman with a letter and a patch over one eye, then driven post haste to the manor home of the great but crumbling Kim dynasty. Lu Han had not much time to be afraid, even knowing some of the rumors surrounding this latest heir to a family of ruined, secretive ambitions. 

Kim Minseok was never seen out and about in society. He did not attend parties, he did not accept dinner invites. He was never at the opera; it had been thirty years since the manor had hosted a ball. People spoke of him, as one did of the people who probably thought themselves so highly exalted and yet were absent from the scene, with hushed titters and covetous, callous remarks. 

"He's become quite eccentric," Lu Han recalled one elder gentlewoman say to her friend. "Reclusive, you know. Such a shame. I mean I know their family has been on the way  _out_  for generations, but that's no reason to hide oneself away, fidgeting with things."

Those  _things_  she referred to, Lu Han had head other whispers, were scientific things. Nobody knew what. Like some great Faustian exchange, Kim Minseok was spoken of like madman bent on reclaiming the past. Others with a more charitable tongue called him an inventor. And others... well, some others had spoken of  _things_  but then spoke nothing else again for they had entirely disappeared. No one remarkable, of course. Just a few rogue types, an apothecary's assistant, a soldier, even a minor third cousin of some greater lord. That one hadn't disappeared but had suddenly been withdrawn home by his family and kept locked away in the country and who knew why except that he had once boasted of having been approached by Sir Kim's estate and tasked with an important request. He could not speak now without stuttering, his brain completely addled. Lu Han knew this because he had gotten drunk in a pub once with a manservant of that household. He wondered now if had something to do with Minseok's request, or that machine. 

A crash of thunder fell across the manor for the rain had not let up and continued to get worse. And as he followed Yixing through dimly lit corridors, past hallways that had no end and staircases he almost didn't notice, he heard a great whoosh of wind which seemed to gust through the house itself. A candle which had been lit on a low table flickered out. Yixing walked past it without even a sideways glance. 

He found, in his new room, a complete set of dinner clothes which Yixing helped him change into. Lu Han had brought no amenities, no clothes. He was grateful for this small kindness, but could not help wondering when he might receive the instruments for murder...

 

 

An hour later he entered the dining hall. His host sat at the end of a long, barren table, two place settings on opposite ends and only two chairs. Lu Han paused for a moment, then he adjusted his tie and walked towards the table. 

Minseok looked asleep. With an arm braced on the table surface supporting his cheek, he nodded back and forth with eyes closed. A small white rat sat perched on his shoulder, unmindful of its precarious position. Lu Han cleared his throat. 

"Mr. Kim?" he spoke. 

Minseok lurched, and his head came up. 

"Ah, yes. Lu Han. I see you found us. Shall we eat then?"


	3. Long Night's Journey into Day

Minseok twitched, Baekhyun’s tail sliding against his cheek as the rat shifted his position. He yawned, his mind leaving the fog and returning to the present.

 _The present._ Lu Han awkwardly dragging the only other heavy mahogany dining chair out so he could sit, looking every bit like he was afraid the chair might break in his grasp. It was a momentary weakness, an innate reaction, a telltale sign. Minseok filed it away for future reference.

Yixing appeared with a covered silver tray, the first of many he would bring to the great dining hall. Minseok stared across the long table, pointedly ignoring his manservant in favor of Lu Han. He was an odd fellow, Minseok surmised, noticing that the awkwardness was gone and the confidence had returned. Perhaps he was too confident, a sign he would fail like the rest of them.

“Lu Han, when you were in Antarctica…” Minseok trailed off, not certain how best to ask the question.

“Yes, Mr. Kim?” Lu Han was following his lead, ignoring the dishes that Yixing placed on the table in favor of staring down his opponent. If Minseok didn’t know better he would take Lu Han for one of his own, an upper-class gentleman used to being waited on hand and foot.

“Do you enjoy duck?” Minseok changed the subject, asking but not really asking, skirting the question that had entered his mind earlier. “They are plentiful on the estate at this time of year.”

“Yes, I do,” Lu Han answered.

Minseok hummed out a response while Yixing began lifting the coverings off of the silver platters, revealing the sumptuous feast. Even if he dined alone, Yixing insisted that he eat a meal that was fitting for his station in life. An obscene amount of food was served at every meal, whether Minseok protested or not.

Baekhyun squeaked at the appearance of food. It was a sudden reminder that he had promised to introduce him to his new business partner. “Lu Han is going to help us, Baekhyun.” Minseok glanced at the rat on his shoulder and then back across the table. “Lu Han, Baekhyun is my most trusted friend.”

He waited for the adventurer to proclaim him a madman but it never came.

“A pleasure to meet you, Baekhyun,” Lu Han greeted with all of the grace and sincerity due when meeting a gentleman.

Minseok couldn’t help but smile, pleased with the way Lu Han handled himself. His smile faltered when he considered he might appear too trusting, too easy, and too ready to be meddled with. He must keep the upper hand at all times.

“Explain why you proposed marriage as a reward.” Minseok demanded, sipping on the glass of red wine Yixing had poured him.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Yixing pause, platter in hand. Surely his servant was startled at the news. Yixing was a professional, however, and quickly resumed his activities without a word.

“As I said, your surname and lineage will help me,” Lu Han answered matter-of-factly. “It is truly as simple as that, Mr. Kim.”

Minseok savored the wine, mulling over the logic. It seemed too simple, too contrived. “I wouldn’t think someone of your profession would be so concerned with his social standing.”

Lu Han shrugged. “An adventurer needs wealthy benefactors, Mr. Kim. Names open doors, your name in particular.”

“I wasn’t aware that my family still had such leverage in society,” Minseok remarked under his breath.

“Indeed, your family is still much talked about.” Minseok detected an edge to Lu Han’s words, sarcasm perhaps. It made him stiffen, unnerving and insulting.

“Let’s eat, I no longer feel like conversing,” Minseok said curtly, his anger barely suppressed.

After that they ate in silence, the only sound in the great hall the periodic noise of silver hitting porcelain. Minseok excused himself to his room once he his plate was empty, not sparing another glance at the adventurer as he departed from the great hall.

  
  
  


Minseok sat at his desk in his chambers, reading and rereading the carefully written notes from the last experiment. The candles burnt low, wax dripping onto the inlaid desk. Minseok ignored the mess, his thoughts elsewhere. _The last experiment._

He could still picture the business partner he had prior to Lu Han, the strange vacant stare that he emerged with after the experiment had failed. Minseok would have felt sorry for him if he could, but that capacity was long gone from him. It was his own family, his own life at stake -- he could not spend his time feeling remorse for those who agreed to help him.

The soft click of the door told Minseok his manservant had arrived. Yixing’s footsteps were quiet, all part of his training to be as unobtrusive as possible.

“He is sleeping, sir,” Yixing reported, shuffling towards the desk.

Minseok looked up from his notes and nodded towards his servant. “Very good. He didn’t suspect anything?”

“No, sir. If he suspected the wine was drugged he didn’t say.”

Minseok noticed that Yixing looked anxious, his calm demeanor belying hidden feelings, noticeable only to someone who knew him well. “What is it?”

“Will you marry him, sir, if he succeeds?” Yixing looked for confirmation, his brow furrowing with worry over what he had heard during dinner.

Minseok sighed. He dragged his hand through his hair, his fingers catching on a tangle. He needed a haircut, he knew, but that was the last thing on his mind. “If he succeeds I will keep my word,” Minseok admitted. “A marriage on paper isn’t the worst thing I’ve been asked for. It will be little more than a legal arrangement.”

Truth be told Minseok had never thought of marrying anyone, for love or for opportunity. It wasn’t a luxury he was afforded, not while he struggled to right the wrong that had been done to his family. If Lu Han succeed where others failed, he would give him this, it was only right. It was what the adventurer had asked for and Minseok desperately needed his help.

Yixing shifted on his feet. “What if he discovers the truth, sir?”

“He won’t,” Minseok quickly assured him. “No more than he needs to. No more than he will if the experiment is a success.”

“I trust you know what you are doing, sir. If there is nothing else I shall take my leave.”

“Go. Rest,” Minseok ordered with a flick of his wrist.

Yixing retreated towards the door, bowing slightly as he turned.

Minseok returned to his notes, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. He wouldn’t sleep again this long night, but that was nothing new.

  
  
  


Morning broke over the Kim Estate, the light of dawn creeping over the overgrown landscape, reflected in the grass wet from the prior day’s rains. Minseok greeted dawn in his laboratory, fiddling with his machine, waiting for Yixing to stir Lu Han from his slumber.

When the adventurer arrived in the laboratory Minseok immediately stopped working, focusing his attention on his business partner. “Good morning, Lu Han,” he greeted.

“Good morning, Mr. Kim.” Lu Han’s voice had a subdued quality to it unlike the day prior, likely an effect of the drugs he had ingested during dinner. When Lu Han got closer Minseok could make out the telltale blood red seeping into his left cornea, another effect of the drugs.

“Please, lie down in the machine, and we will begin,” Minseok directed him, gesturing towards his most prized possession.

Lu Han walked to the contraption without protest, following Minseok’s orders without question or a hint of discomfort.


	4. The First Connection

Lu Han's head throbbed dully as he sank down into the contraption. He felt sluggish, his mind had been foggy since last night. He barely remembered anything before he was in bed, and after that he did not dream. Despite the haze in his head, he felt strangely empty, clear-headed, ready for... something, something he knew not what. There was no doubt in his mind that his drink last night had been spiked. He could only assume that since Minseok wanted him for this task, he would not therefore be murdered before it was accomplished. 

The machine fit him better this morning. His legs were relaxed, arms in a comfortable position. A cushion had been added to the headrest, to which was attached the same electric blue wires he had wondered at the day before. This time, when Minseok had finished assembling everything, there were no loose wires. Every one had a joint and a slot, and they wrapped around Lu Han's head, neck, chest, arms and legs at strange pressure points. 

Lu Han closed his eyes and had a moment's panic that he was floating  _somewhere else._ Quickly his eyelids flashed open. He found Minseok looking at him with a smirk. 

"Try to remain calm, if you please. This will make it much easier for you if you do."

Lu Han tried to nod; he found himself unable to. Quietening his nerves appeared much harder to do in practice than in theory. 

"What's... what's going to happen?" he asked.

Minseok pursed his lips in contemplation. "Hopefully, nothing bad." 

Lu Han's blood suddenly boiled in his veins. "What?"

But Minseok was smiling. 

"No. I have a queer reassurance that you are the one. It will work. It will work." He was not looking at Lu Han. His gaze had narrowed, hid mind somewhere far away. He flipped a switch and Lu Han's mind turned even more hazy. In the last second before he lost consciousness he heard his host whisper one last time, "It's just  _got to work..."_

 

 

 

Lu Han was in a dream. 

A warm breeze rushed past his temples. The sound of waves, seagulls. The smell of salt spray and something floral. Roses, maybe. 

Lu Han blinked. He had the distinct feeling of being completely immobilized. He gasped and felt suffocated. Air rushed from his lungs and was trapped in his throat. He was dying... asphyxiating.

Then just as suddenly as it had come, it passed. He wheezed. Arms he could not have felt a moment earlier flew to his chest where he pounded his airways. His legs burned. He itched to move them, but they too were bizarrely immobile. Lu Han struggled a good while before manage to dislodge them. Finally, he was free again... He could move! There was another wisp of salt spray, calling his attention to where he was.

"Waves, seagulls. Waves, roses," he tried out his vocal cords. His voice was groggy, a little bit throaty, but it worked. Looking down he saw himself standing on sand. He was wearing a familiar set of clothes, and they were not beach appropriate. The dampness pressed upon his shoes; a small wave had washed up upon his calves before retreating back into the ocean. It was unpleasant, and dirty. His mind crinkled, conjuring an image he could not on his own power have divined. In under a moment he was barefooted except for a think strip of sandal, wearing shorts and a striped shirt with no sleeves. And his first vague thought was, "I'm naked!" 

Someone in the distance shouted an undistinguishable word. Lu Han spun around, suddenly reeling from the realization he was not entirely alone. The beach was littered with dozens of people, some singles, some families. Each was 'unclothed' as he was now, in the same state of undress, if not more so. But that was not the craziest thing. 

The skyline... It was incredible. It was a city undoubtable, but none like Lu Han had ever seen. There were towers as high as the heavens, gleaming metallic monstrosities. Before it all was a road so wide it could have fit ten carriages easily. Carriages did rush past, but they were not anything Lu Han recognized. The speed of it all, the sound of it all... it pressed him from all sides, furiously roiled in his brain. He felt his knees wobble. His ears rang suddenly from a high pitched squeal that could only be coming from inside his head. Throwing caution to the wind, he pitched his knees down into the sand and threw his hands over his eyes. He tasted bile in the back of his throat. Moments later he was vomited over the sand. 

Time roared past, but he knew nothing except his own sickness. Fear and pain mixed with his earlier panic of immobility, but he refused to let it win. He thrashed and spun, fighting the urge to fall, to sink back into the despair of his consciousness. He was winning... he was losing...

"Lu Han?" 

There, there... that voice! He knew it. From somewhere. It was known. It was unknown. 

"Lu Han? Look at me."

Someone took his arms. 

"Come on, you can do it. Open your eyes. It's okay, I've got you."

That voice, so melodic, sweet. The voice of a friend. 

Lu Han opened his eyes. He expected to be somewhere else. Visions of a chair, a contraption, a haunted, lonely mansion, swam before his eyes. 

"Lu Han? Lu Han, it's Minseok. You're alright. I've got you. You... you're here... you're actually here. This is incredible!"

Minseok stood before him, but he was nothing like the Minseok Lu Han had known. They still stood on that beach with the people with the wrong clothes and the skyline that was unmentionable. But Minseok was dressed like him, and his hands were warm. He was solid, he was human. He smiled and the image of that was enough to make Lu Han want to swoon from the sheer beauty of it. 

"Minseok?" Lu Han's voice no longer warbled. It was solid and strong. It felt real; Minseok felt real. 

"Yes. It's me... You're here. You're finally here."

Lu Han shook his head. "I don't know what you mean. Where is here? I don't know this place at all. This place is... it isn't right."

The smile on Minseok's face trembled only slightly. He renewed his grip on Lu Han's arm and smiled again, earnestly, softly. "You know me though, don't you?"

Lu Han squinted. "I do, but... not from here I don't. Minseok, what is this place? I was sitting down, and then I was here."

The man Lu Han knew and did not know closed his mouth and nodded a couple times. He pat Lu Han's arm reassuringly. "I think I understand. This is your first journey, isn't it. I've been waiting for you. I've been everywhere and in every place you have already been, but for you this is just the first. Lu Han, you have to tell me something."

"Tell you what?" Gravity threatened once again to drag him down. He blinked, and he swore his body had flickered once, disappearing, before appearing again. 

"Tell _me_ ~" Minseok was saying, but Lu Han could almost not focus. 

"I don't... understand."

"Lu Han!" 

He struggled to focus, to hear Minseok's words, but it was growing increasingly difficult to do so. Something was calling him back, back home, back somewhere else.

"Lu Han, you're the one. _I_ know, but my other self does not! He needs to know!"

Lu Han squinted, trying to understand. He was light-headed again and fighting his own existence.

"You've got to tell me, Minseok, the first Minseok, that it's worked. You have to tell him! Past, present, future, you are the one and the key! Lu Han, tell him you met me, and that all of me, every body, every image, every trace that's been lost throughout time... every one of us has met and known you~!"

"I don't... und...er...stand..."

The last thing Lu Han heard before experiencing the jolt of a fall was Minseok's resigned sob and the words, "Lu Han... we'll meet again. So many times... we'll meet again."


	5. Trust No One

Minseok absentmindedly moved his hand down the small rat’s body, petting his friend while his mind was focused on the man lying in the machine. He watched every twitch of Lu Han’s body with great interest, ever time the man jerked he moved closer to make sure he was still properly affixed to the contraption.

The hum of the machine echoed through the ballroom, the dials fluctuating sporadically. Minseok wondered just where Lu Han had been taken to and if he would manage to make it back intact. The drugs would help, Minseok had learned that after the first two failures. He had an edge with what he had ingested less than a day ago but beyond that it was up to his own abilities to see his mission through, assuming he could finish his task the first time around.

A sudden wave of nausea overcame Minseok, a spasm in his stomach causing him to cry out and double over. Baekhyun jumped from his hand and scurried to the far end of the ballroom.

“It must be working,” Minseok cried out through the pain. “It must be…”

He registered the sound of footsteps, Yixing running towards him. Minseok knew he had been hanging back, watching and waiting in case something would happen and he would be needed. Minseok let himself crumble into his man servant’s arms, clawing at his sleeves as his body was racked with spreading pain.

“Yixing, it is…he must…” Minseok tried to speak but his tongue was thick and useless.

“Sir, please, you need to swallow this.” Yixing produced a pill from his jacket pocket. He moved it towards Minseok’s mouth.

Minseok struggled, crying out. Yixing shoved the pill in his open mouth. He clamped his hand on his master’s mouth, the other one massaging his throat, forcing him to swallow.

Minseok dug his nails into Yixing’s arm. It felt like his body was being ripped to shreds, he was being pushed apart from the inside, his flesh and bones separating into a thousand pieces.

And then darkness.

 

 

 

He knew it was going to be bad, it had been building for weeks. How long had it been since he had slept? Since he had let unconsciousness take over, let the curse fall upon him again?

Minseok blinked rapidly, letting his eyes adjust to the bright sunlight. The bright sun. The smell of salt. He looked down. He toed his shoe against the sand, digging the tip into the dark wet ground. His footwear changed before his eyes, the skin of his foot revealed, leather strapped sandals appearing.

“Here again,” he whispered. It had been years since he had been to this place, since it had appeared in the rotation – the sequence he never could figure out.

He looked up, eyes scanning the beach. He was looking for someone, but who? His mind was foggy, his memories fragmented. There was someone he had sent, a new person who had taken up the task. But…who was this person?

Minseok took a step forward, then another, his legs stiff and unwieldy. A pair of children ran in front of him, giggling as they made tiny footprints in the sand. Minseok side stepped them, making his way up the beach.

“Minseok!!”

He turned at the sound of his name being called. A man with a big smile and blood red hair walked towards him. He was wearing the peculiar dress of this world, his chest exposed, his bottom half clad in a floral printed pair of pants that covered only half of his legs.

“Baekhyun,” Minseok said quietly.

“I knew it was you the moment your posture changed,” Baekhyun reported cheerfully. “I haven’t seen you in—“

“Years,” Minseok finished for him.

“Well, yes. I mean _this_ you.” Baekhyun reached out and pulled Minseok into a bone crushing hug. “I was beginning to wonder if you hadn’t disappeared.”

Baekhyun smelled like coconuts, the strange scent that Minseok had learned of when he attended a lecture at the royal academy as a teenager. The speaker was a man who had travelled to the tropics, bringing back an array of native items.

“How have you been?” Baekhyun broke the hug but kept his hands planted on Minseok’s shoulders.

“I’ve been well,” Minseok lied. He was never well, never had been well, and never would be well until this nightmare was over. He took a deep breath, he felt woozy. “Baekhyun, have you seen anyone else recently? A person like me?”

Baekhyun shook his head. “No.”

Minseok pursed his lips. If only he knew who he was looking for. If only he could understand why he felt this way.

“There was something strange that happened a few months back, now that I think about it.” Baekhyun stepped away, his mirthful expression turning serious. “You told me about it, let me try to remember what you said.”

Minseok waited, holding his breath, heartrate increasing at the promise of learning something, anything.

“Ah, right, I remember!” Baekhyun clapped his hands together. “It was about a man named Lu something. Lu…” Baekhyun pursed his lips. “Well anyway, you said that it won’t work. That if I meet him he isn’t someone to be trusted.”

“Lu…” The name meant nothing to him.

“Be careful, Minseok,” Baekhyun warned. “But I suppose you know that, after all this time. You can’t trust anyone.”

Minseok swallowed. Trust. Had he ever truly trusted anyone? No, he didn’t think so. “Thank you for telling me, Baekhyun.”

“No problem. What else are friends for?” Baekhyun smiled brightly. It was the last thing Minseok saw before his world faded to black.

 

 

 

Minseok screamed, his eyes suddenly opening. He jolted up, wildly flailing his arms.

“Sir, sir, I’m here. It’s all right.” Yixing was on him in a flash, his hands on Minseok’s shoulders, keeping him in place.

Minseok struggled, crying out.

“You are awake, sir!” Yixing shouted, holding onto his master with more force.

Minseok stopped moving. Blinking rapidly he looked around. He was back, he had returned to the manor house. He was in his bedroom, the drapes drawn. The room was dark except for a handful of lit candles.

“How long was I…” Minseok asked, his voice strained.

“Five hours, sir. You don’t need to worry, I helped Lu Han from the device when he awoke.”

Minseok’s chest heaved with rapid breaths. Lu Han. He had helped Lu Han. Yes, that was his name, the one he was searching for.

The one Baekhyun said not to trust.

“Where is he now?”  Minseok pushed Yixing away and moved towards the edge of the bed. He stood, his gait unsteady. Yixing reached out to steady him.

“He is in his chambers, sir.”

Minseok pushed Yixing away yet again. He stalked out of the room, still fighting the dizziness that inevitably accompanied each episode. Down the long hallways he stalked, fire in his veins. When he reached Lu Han’s room he threw open the door without knocking, the heavy wood thudding against the plastered wall.

Lu Han was sitting on his bed, awake but groggy looking.

“You,” Minseok hissed, storming over to the man. “What have you done?!”

Lu Han stared at him, eyes glassy. “He said to tell you, he said that you should know I am –“

Minseok was on him in a second, hands wrapping around Lu Han’s long neck, pushing him down into the bed. “You failed. You failed!” Minseok screamed, tightening his grasp. Lu Han grabbed at Minseok’s arm, trying to pull him off, trying to free himself, trying to regain the ability to breathe.


	6. A Portrait by Night

Lu Han gasped, wheezing, panicked from the sudden attack. His eyes bulged; he could not even get over his shock. His hands flew to Minseok's arms, grip flailing but determined as he pried them away from his throat. 

"You failed!" screamed the other. Tears streamed down his face, but his chokehold held. With his airways growing less and less viable, Lu Han's adrenaline kicked in. He heaved himself sideways, still holding onto Minseok's arms, and the momentum through both of them onto the bed so that Lu Han suddenly had the upper hand. Minseok screeched. He looked blinded by rage, but it was a kind Lu Han recognized. His host was distraught, violent with aggravation, overly emotional and, alternately, weak with grief. Lu Han didn't understand, but he saw in Minseok's eyes a fatigue so immense it threatened to engulf them both.

"You-- failed--!" cried Minseok one last time. Finding his hands suddenly dislodged, he threw them out once again on the offense; this time Lu Han managed to catch them. With some difficulty he pinned Minseok to the bed with his arms up by his head.

"Minseok! Stop! Just, stop a second! Okay? Okay?!" 

Minseok thrashed for another long second, but he could no longer see from all the tears in his eyes. He gave up the struggle and lay meekly on the bed. Lu Han hesitated to let him go.

"Minseok? Hey, hey, look at me."

The other did, finally. But seeing Lu Han so serenely overhead caused him to clench his eyes shut. He cried even harder. 

"Minseok?" Lu Han was bewildered. "Alright, you need to talk to me... You  _have_  to explain to me what that machine was about? Okay? I went... somewhere. I don't even know where I was. It wasn't like anything I've ever seen before and you know what, I've been to a lot of shores. Now you're my only link that experience so you  _have_  to tell me! I saw you! I saw  _you,_ but it wasn't you. It was... God, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. It was another you? Is that even right? You were you, but you weren't, and you told me... I had to pass on a message to  _you._ "

At this Minseok opened his eyes. He sniffled once. His arms rattled under the cage Lu Han had set himself as. Cooly, Lu Han let him go and sat on his haunches. Immediately Minseok rolled over. Though Lu Han waited for it, Minseok did not try to assault him again. Instead, his back to Lu Han, he curled up on the bed. Knees drawn to his chest, his head half buried in Lu Han's pillow, Minseok gave one long heaving sigh. 

The seconds dragged on. Maybe minutes. Perceiving that Minseok was awake, Lu Han continued. 

"He said to tell you... that something had worked. That I was the one. I was the key. And then there was something about past, present, future... I don't understand it. He said 'all of you' knew me? And that we'd meet again?"

Still there was no answer. Lu Han sighed. He desperately wanted to go back to sleep. By the light coming through the windows it was still likely mid afternoon. He remembered waking up from the machine with a severe headache. He remembered vomiting all over himself, and Minseok's manservant Yixing being there to help him. There had been no sign of his host, which was strange, but at the time he wasn't able to dwell on it. Yixing escorted him back to his room and cleaned him up and urged him into bed. And there he had remained until being so rudely awoken. 

"Minseok? Er, Mr. Kim?" 

Was there such a thing as proper manners of address when the man now currently cowering in his bed had tried to throttle him minutes before?

All Lu Han knew was that in all of his travels across the globe, and even perhaps in that weird dream-that-was-not-a-dream, he had never met anything quite as bizarre as Kim Minseok. 

He sighed once more. His head had not stopped its throbbing. He yearned to close his eyes and embrace his pillow once more. And since his host had neither moved nor renewed a murderous posture, Lu Han lay down and surrendered himself to sleep. 

 

 

 

When he awoke, it was to darkness once more. 

He sat up with a jolt. Instantly his hands went to his throat, but there was nothing there. Even still he could feel the phantom grip of the man who had employed him to murder and then assaulted him. There was no one in his bed. 

Lu Han shuffled out of the bed sheets with unnerving haste. Beside the bed was a night robe and slippers and a candle burning low. Someone had to have been in recently to light it, within the past hour at least. He took it and his robe and slippers and crept into the hall. Unlike the night before when the hallway had been lit by gaslight, it was dark as midnight now. The whole manor seemed fraught with shadows cast only by moonlight from the sparsely placed windows. They moved with the wind, ghastly ghosts from the tree branches outside, Lu Han could only. He took one hesitant step, then silently a few more. He held his breath. At the end of the hall was true light. Someone was awake.

He crept down the hall, glad at least that the storm from the previous night had passed. Gladder still that there was moonlight to light the way. 

His candle flickered out when he crossed the first dark staircase. He gasped, and the entire tray fell from his hands. Hot wax spilled across the rug, and a wind howled suddenly from the stairwell. This one went only up. Lu Han knew from the windows that he was already at least several floors above ground. 

His breath hitching with each step, Lu Han crept further towards the light. He fancied he heard a low wailing from somewhere else, but this he ignored. He could not afford to dwell on it. He was in a strange manor home, as ancient as the dynasty it had once housed, home now only to an outcast scientist with a time machine (for that was the only thing he could imagine) who had actually tried to kill Lu Han in his own bed. 

Yes, Lu Han, who had seen half the world and described himself as the toughest adventurer out there, was scared.

It took ages, but the light shone finally from an open doorway. Lu Han peeked in, expecting another sort of laboratory. Instead, the room opened out onto a wide vista, another hallway which spanned the north side of the manor. It was lined on one wall by a row of grand portraits. Here and there stood statuesque busts of certain Kim ancestors as well as artwork of various kinds.

Minseok stood in the center of the room between two bright gaslights. Lu Han made a sound of surprise, but his host did not acknowledge him. Instead, he remained still, arms hanging limply by his sides as he stared at one particularly luminous portrait of a man Lu Han didn't know.

He walked forward, halfway expecting to be attacked again. But Minseok did nothing except wait for him to approach. His eyes were bloodshot. Lu Han stared at the portrait. It featured a man in older style dress from at least one hundred years ago. 

 _Kim Joonmyun_ , read the plaque under the frame.  _First and last of his name._

Minseok spoke. "This is my ancestor, Lu Han. Joonmyun was... is... my great-great uncle. You will meet him at some point." 

"I will  _what?_ "

Minseok only hummed like he hadn't heard. "Yes, I suppose you will. Sorry, by the way, for coming on to you like that earlier. My episodes... that's what Yixing calls them... can make me upset. Morose at their most common. Other times, violent."

Lu Han gulped. With an apology like that, well... "Episodes?"

Minseok ignored him. "You said you met  _me,_ in your dream. Tell me, what was I like?"

Lu Han tried to explain it. He got as far as the beach and the weird state of dress before the other stopped him.

"Oh, yes. That must be right." Then he said no more, except, "walk with me, Lu Han. I am tired of this ancestor now. He was so meddlesome, Joonmyun. You will learn about that eventually, I'm afraid. For years I have sought him, but he was... is... more elusive than even I could have imagined, when I started this journey." 

"He is still...?" It seemed such a stupid question, yet Lu Han had to ask. The way Minseok talked about him, the way he referred to him... This Kim Joonmyun, hundred year old ancestor, had taken root in Lu Han's imagination like a grand villain. But how could that be so? "He is still, _alive_?"

"Alive?" answered Minseok. "Oh yes, after a fashion. Are you able-minded right now, Lu Han? I would offer you another meal, but Yixing says you threw up your breakfast, and I would dearly love for you to try the device again. As I said, time is of the essence and there are still many calibrations to try. Hopefully we can make more progress tonight. I will try not to kill you when it's all said and done."

For a brief moment Lu Han envisioned, not his almost death, but the memory of Minseok laying back on his bed, arms restrained and vulnerable. Where was that Minseok now, he wondered, almost lamely. 

He forgot that Minseok was walking back to the grand ballroom stocked not with decadence but with unimaginable machines. He sucked in his breath when he saw it again, as Minseok lead him back to the chair.  _That chair which was a portal to another world, another Minseok, maybe thousands more Minseoks like him_. 

"By the way," Lu Han asked, suddenly curious. He saw that the animal cage was empty. "Your rat? Baekhyun. He isn't there..."

Minseok stilled, like from a jolt of lightning. "Baekhyun? Oh yes, he is... hiding from me right now. I'm sure he'll be back."

 

 


	7. A Sign

Minseok had made a mistake. A terrible mistake. In a moment of anger, he had let his guard down, had dared to cry tears of frustration in front of Lu Han. He hated appearing weak, especially in front of someone he needed to maintain the upper hand with always. It was foolish, to let the anger dominate him.

“Sir, what do you plan to do?” Yixing questioned after the incident with Lu Han, once Minseok had dragged himself from the sleeping adventurer’s room and back to his laboratory. His cheeks were still stained his tears, his eyes dark and unreadable. He was anguished, angry...confused.

“Baekhyun said he failed,” Minseok repeated what he had been told on the beach, what had sparked his intense anger, what had facilitated the attack. “And yet Lu Han says that I claimed he succeeded. Who should I trust...who should I trust. No one, probably no one.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. A dear old friend or this adventurer he knew little of. Perhaps it was an easier decision than he thought...but no. It was never easy. Not when there were as many versions of Baekhyun as there were of him. Trust no one.

 

 

A few hours later, after much debate, Minseok had made up his mind. His decision was not supported by his faithful servant who immediately tried to talk him out of it. “Sir, you know what can happen. You know--”

Minseok waved his hand dismissively. “That was before.”

Yixing stared at his master, an incredulous look on his face. “Before?! Sir, I fail to see how anything has radically changed.”

“He met me. Yixing, _he met me the first time_. He spoke to me, is that not a sign?” Through all the experiments this was the first time that someone had met him on the first go. After much debate Minseok took that as a sign, regardless of the success or failure of the overall mission, because of that he could not be certain.

“Random chance, sir,” Yixing continued to try to talk him out of his insane idea. “And he could have lied.”

“More reason to do this, to make sure he is not lying,” Minseok seized the logic.

Yixing out of anyone who had met Minseok knew him the best. He knew he was not going to talk the man out of something when he set his mind to it. The servant acquiesced, giving up his protests and shifting towards how to make the plan a success. “Tell me what you need me to do, sir.”

“At the first sign of trouble, kill him,” Minseok ordered.

“Yes, sir, very well.”

 

 

The haunting portrait of Kim Junmyeon was the natural place for Minseok to gravitate towards after making such a potentially disastrous decision. Junmyeon, after all, was the first person Minseok had met when the curse had descended on him, the first ancestor to speak to him, to explain and to give some clarity. He had never met Kim Junmyeon again and much, much later he had learned how damaging the man had been to him.

“Perhaps we shall meet soon,” Minseok whispered, staring into the vacant eyes of the man, the portrait painted long after the curse had seeped into him. “I think I should like that.”

That was where Lu Han found him, standing in front of the large painting.

And from there Minseok learned what Lu Han had experienced, during their walk to the laboratory. It furthered Minseok’s resolve to go through with his plan. Not only had Lu Han met him but he had gone to the same place, the same beach, that Minseok had visited last. Surely this was a sign of some sort.

 

 

 

Minseok sensed the undercurrent of fear and apprehension in the adventurer as he was once again strapped to the machine. It gave Minseok a sense of perverse pleasure to know that he was not the only one in this strange business partnership to let his weakness show.

Minseok set the calibration per his latest calculation, flipping the lever the machine began to hum. A few minutes later, after he was certain Lu Han was now hovering between consciousness and that other state that was sleep but not, Minseok called for Yixing. It was time.

He delighted that Lu Han hadn’t noticed the small bed in the corner of the laboratory, a new addition. It saved him from having to answer any questions on its purpose.

Minseok walked to the bed, slipping off his shoes he climbed onto the mattress. It was firm, but he wasn’t using it for comfort. No, his purpose was to enter that dark and shadowy world that frightened him for years, that place that was of this world but not. A place he avoided at all costs, a place that drove him to insanity, to fits of rage. A place that took from him little by little until there was nothing left.

It was the reason he needed someone to help him. Someone like Lu Han, who had a lesser chance of falling victim to the curse. Someone who could succeed where Minseok could not. None of his ancestors could succeed, could end the vicious plague that had befallen them. For this curse that sent them into a thousand different truths also tore them apart, leaving a version everywhere they touched until they were fragmented beyond repair, unable to live anymore, their humanity torn from them. Gone, but not -- not entirely because they never could be whole yet they would never cease to exist. Existing in many places, with many motivations, but never truly at peace. Shells of a person, pieces of what made one human, scattered for reasons unknown.

Minseok was the first who had developed a way for others to enter these worlds, these moments in time and space via his glorious machine. He was the first of his family to recognize how futile it was to chase after the truth himself, across infinite realities, for each one he visited he lost more of himself. It would only happen if another did the work for them, destroying whoever had started the curse. A man, Minseok knew from the pieces he had gathered, but what man and when and where he dwelled remained a mystery.  Only that his death was key to freedom.

The ones before Lu Han hadn’t been strong enough. In time, they fell victim like Minseok’s family, albeit with effects rooted more definitely in this world. This place where the Kim family were once great nobles, where this rundown manor home spoke of former glories is where they bore the effects of their journey. Their brains addled they disappeared, Minseok ensuring they would cause no problems.

Yet Minseok was ready to be foolish, entering again this dark and desolate place, to observe, to see if Lu Han had promise that the others did not. It was the first time in years he had taken a chance like this, had any thought to accompany the person he strapped into his glorious machine. But Lu Han was different, he thought, something was different this time. _It had to be._

“The pill, Yixing.” Minseok held out his hand. He could no longer sleep of his own free will, his mind too terrified, too traumatized. Yixing had the tranquilizers prescribed by the village doctor, which he produced and handed to his master.

Minseok eagerly pushed the pill into his mouth, then drank the water that Yixing gave him.

He laid back, waiting. Within two minutes he was enveloped in darkness.

 

 

 

The foul odor was the first thing Minseok registered, followed by the pain that surrounded him. He opened his eyes, groaning at the thunderous headache he had developed. He put his hand on his head, wincing.

“By order of his majesty you shall meet your death tomorrow, in punishment for slandering the most righteous of men, his majesty...” a voice rattled off somewhere nearby. Minseok glanced around, seeing a heavy wooden door with a barred window on it. Torchlight cast shadows against the wall across from him. When he looked down he saw a dirt floor littered with hay.

Across the small room, in the opposite corner, there was a figure sitting, dressed in coarse white pants and a shirt, smeared with dirt, blood on his face.

“M-minseok?” a small voice asked from the corner.

It was Lu Han.

“It worked,” Minseok smiled. By god, they had travelled to the same place! He could remember taking the pill, he could understand this was his goal and it had worked!

Minseok was foolishly elated, completely ignoring the death sentence that the guards had just communicated.


	8. The Relatives

Lu Han couldn't help containing his smile. "Minseok? You're here..."

Relief swept over him in spite of the situation. In the hour he suspected it had been since he woke up here, Lu Han's life had gone from bad to worse. 

 _"You there! Who are you!"_ after he first materialized. 

_"He must be one of those traitors!"_

_"Arrest that man, and lock him up!"_

Before Lu Han ever had a chance to acclimate he found himself thrown in jail where he was subsequently beaten half to death and finally sentenced to it in full. The only thing that registered was that he was somewhere in the past. He'd gone to the future last time, of that he was sure, but this was different. The guards' clothes and their weapons were straight out of an earlier era. And their accents, even their language! He was perplexed to realize that it was totally foreign to him, and yet he could understand! Just as his dress had accommodated for this new world, so had his very brain. It was enough to make his entire head spin. Or perhaps he was just too concussed from the beating. 

The cell was dark, long shadows dancing across the ground and through the bars. His raw, bloodied body itched from the hay. He was certain it was alive, or at least that there were creeping things in it that were alive. Lu Han could have dealt with it; this was not the first time he had found himself abroad in less than poor circumstances. Except right now he was lost in another world entirely. Also, it looked like maybe he wouldn't have to worry about his life here for too much longer. 

Would it hurt, he wondered. Dying? Would he wake up back in that machine? Would he wake up at all? Would he even last until the sentence was carried out? Lu Han settled in to wondering if there was even another option for him, and for that he looked around. 

There had been a stranger in the cell with him. Lu Han had glanced at him, face in shadows. He hadn't spoken, had been completely still, immobile. Another prisoner like him, Lu Han guessed.  _A traitor_. Who knew to what king in what era, but that Lu Han's fate had somehow been tied up with another's. 

Lu Han shrugged when the man hadn't responded, went about searching his cell. It was old-fashioned but sturdy. It would definitely do the job of keeping him contained. And so, with no other hope he had settled down in the corner to think, to wait, for anything.

Then the man opposite him moved. 

Lu Han barely heard the second pronouncement of his impending death. Because all of a sudden the figure in his cell lurched out of the shadows and Lu Han... recognized his face. 

"M-Minseok?"

Minseok sat forward clutching his head like he was in pain. He said nothing for a moment but only moaned. He looked up. Finally Lu Han heard the soft whisper, "It worked."

He was smiling, creepily. 

"Minseok?" Lu Han tried again. 

Suddenly, the other man sat upright. "Where are we? What's going on?" 

Lu Han frowned. "You... don't know? You were here before I got here?"

He shook his head. "I was, but not quite."

"Huh?"

Sighing, Minseok explained, "Look you told me you met  _me_  before, the first time you... went under. Yeah, well you did but you didn't. Those are only pieces of me, echoes I left behind. I don't remember them well. I  _can't_  remember them well when there are _thousands_ of them, you understand?  Because once I wake up there are too many things happening in my head, so that consciousness just, shuts off. Unless I'm sitting here consciously controlling one of my former traces it's like that other body was just a shell."

He sat back in the straw and groaned, his hand worming through thick, bloodied locks of hair. Some of it dripped down his forehead. "God," groaned, "and to think our enemies think we've accomplished some kind of immortal life! Do you see you, Lul Han? This isn't life! This is torment! What's the point of living so many times when each of them is so hollow!"

Lu Han's lips moved but he could not speak. These things Minseok said... He didn't... He couldn't...

Before he could fully make sense of them, however, Minseok sat up with renewed energy. "That's why I need you, your focusing power. To help me end this." 

Lu Han managed something that sounded kind of like a laugh, he hoped. "Well you're in luck because I think our run in this particular world is about to end  _very soon_."

Minseok frowned. "Oh, right. Sorry about that. What did I do this time?"

"Treason?"

"Hmm, unlikely, but I guess it's as good a reason as any. Anyone come by that you've recognized yet? Oh, you wouldn't recognize so many people. Word of advice, when we get out of here you should spend some time observing faces in the portrait gallery. Some of them are young enough that when we we meet in other planes they're still functioning okay. They can be helpful. Most are... little more than automatons. Time's a bitch, even--"

"Do you mean like your ancestor, Junmyeon?"

Minseok stopped and threw him a curious grin. "Yeah... kind of. Although that one seems more awake than most. Every time I hear of him it's because of some fresh scheme he's cooked up and left the rest of us to roast in." He added offhandedly, "maybe he's the one who committed treason." 

From somewhere down the dimly lit corridor came the rustling of the guards, keys jangling loudly against their swords, loud, and grumbling. By the sound of it they dragged someone behind them in the dirt. Minseok drew instantly to the bars where he gripped them hard, his nose angled to look. Lu Han cautiously crawled up beside him.

"What are you looking for?"

"Clues," said Minseok. "Always clues."

"Clues for what?"

He shook his head. "That's what I don't know."

Lu Han sat on his heels, even though his whole body still hurt. It was more than surreal that he could actually focus on his surroundings. Minseok had just told him he lived a tortured immortal life, him and his whole dynasty apparently. Lu Han could remember laying down on a chair in his world. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost still  _feel_  himself laying there. And yet his injuries, and his soreness, the itchiness of the straw and his threadbare clothes all told a different tale. Lu Han was in the past, very much  _alive_ in the past, probably about to  _die_  in the past. And beside him stood the man who had initiated that process, Minseok. With twice as much energy here than he'd ever shown in the real world. 

Lu Han snorted.

Minseok turned and squinted. "What was that for?"

He shrugged and Minseok went back to looking through the bars, waiting for the figure being dragged towards them. 

Lu Han laughed to himself. Immortality? he thought. And all Lu Han had wanted was to make a little money and maybe nail down a prestigious name. Of all the lands in his own world he'd wanted to explore, from the farthest reaches of the southernmost world to the highest mountains, he sat here now with someone even more incredible than all that. 

"And to think," he said aloud in a whisper, "I thought I presumed too much by asking to marry you." He laughed again, and Minseok frowned, hushing him. 

The guards had pulled up beside their cell. The body they hauled was nowhere close to limp. It writhed and moaned and occasionally cursed them with sarcastic words. Minseok and Lu Han slid backwards when the guards opened the door. 

"Get in there, you pig!" they shouted. 

"Gladly!" shouted the new prisoner.

With a dull crash the body landed between them. A second later the heavy gate was swung closed and locked behind them. Minseok crawled towards the body which was already sitting up. It was a man. He looked younger than both of them. His face was similarly bloodied and he sported a rather nice black eye along with more bruises along the side of his face and arms, probably more besides. But the most curious thing was that he was smiling, and extra so when I spotted Minseok.

Minseok was startled. "Y-you... you! What are you doing here!"

The young man sighed, rather affronted. "What do you mean, what am I doing here? Saw you come in, kid. I came to save you of course!" He grinned broadly, then looked over at Lu Han. "Oh, I see you brought one of your friends this time. Let me guess, he's got just as little deference as you. Still can't show me the right proper respect huh?"

Minseok huffed. "If you think I'm going to refer to you as  _grandpa_ , old man, you're dead wrong."

The man grinned even larger. "That's the spirit. Anyways, want to introduce me to the new kid? I'm going to guess your machine's working better this time, or isn't this one going to turn into a rat too?"

Minseok's eyes grew large. "You know about that?" 

He sighed. "I know lots, my boy! Lots and lots!"

Minseok looked a little worried, but he introduced them nevertheless. "Uhm, this is... Lu Han. Lu Han, this is my... grandpa, Jongdae. Kim Jongdae." 

 


	9. A Strange New World

Lu Han stared at the newcomer, his eyes wide, his confusion clearly communicated. “Grand…father?”

“A _version_ of my grandfather,” Minseok corrected him.

“Version? Is that all I am to you?” Jongdae snorted. “I thought your father was bad but my word, you are even less refined than he, my good boy.”

Minseok brought his hand to his face. Of all the ancestors to encounter….

“It is nice to meet you, Mr. Kim.” Lu Han greeted the man as pleasantly as he could given the circumstances, shaking off the awkwardness of who they were, where they were, and why they were there to begin with.

“You should learn from your friend, he is a proper gentleman,” Jongdae admonished, beaming at Lu Han and his impeccable manners.

Minseok sighed. “Jongdae–”

“ _Grandfather_ ,” Jongdae interrupted, holding up his hand.

Minseok fought rolling his eyes. “You’re my age, maybe younger!”

“Respect, young man, is what our family is founded on.” Jongdae folded his arms against his chest, his bruised face displaying a deep frown.

“Fine. Fine!” Minseok gave in. “ _Grandfather,_ where are we?”

“About time you asked that.”

Minseok thought that Jongdae was in remarkably good spirits given his current state. Bloody, bruised, snarky, with a wide smile on his face –– exactly like the grandpa he remembered.

“First literati purge, Joseon. Fourteen ninety eight by the reckoning you go by in that dusty old place you call home,” Jongdae rattled off. “You managed to commit the crime of being intelligent, my dear boy, and for that you will dearly pay with your life.”

“Jo-see-on,” Lu Han sounded out the word. “Korea?”

“The very one!” Jongdae snapped his fingers. “Amazing place if you aren’t about to be drawn and quartered.”

Lu Han audibly gulped.

“You said you were here to save us?” Minseok asked, not liking the sound of a painful death. He glanced towards Lu Han and noted how confused the man looked, but honestly he could not blame him. It was so much to take in for someone who was not accustomed to such travels.

“How do I understand you?” Lu Han asked, his voice cracking. “I cannot speak the language.”

Jongdae and Minseok looked at the adventurer and answered in tandem. “Science.”

“You are a chip off the old block!” Jongdae punched Minseok’s arm, pleased at his response.

Minseok flinched, the pain of the journey and whatever had been done to his body in this world still very present.

Jongdae gave a nod in apology, then continued his ramble. “Sorry. Now, now, back to the matter at hand. Yes, I shall save you, but for a price. You know better than anyone, kid, that the Kim’s are not a charitable lot.”

“What do you want?” Minseok asked dryly, expecting as much. If only he had run into one of his aunts or perhaps his father, he wouldn’t have to bargain for help.

“Take me with you. I’ve been stuck here for…” Jongdae looked up at the ceiling, mentally tallying his length of stay. “Too long. Far too long and it doesn’t seem that I am going anywhere fast.”

“How would I take you with us?! Impossible!” Minseok remarked, his voice raising a few notes in protest. He had only now ended up at the same place as the man he strapped into his great invention, moving ancestors along with him was terribly unlikely no matter what they wanted.

Jongdae wagged a bloodied finger in Minseok’s face. “Nonsense. You have the means right here.” He turned to Lu Han. “I have it on good authority that this one can do many things.”

“You just met him!” Minseok said skeptically. He had learned during a particularly trying jaunt to the warring states period that his grandfather was not always to be trusted.

“I did, but you didn’t. I mean, the _you_ that wasn’t you, _this you_ , mentioned him. Not to mention Junmyeon, the common dandy couldn’t stop talking about him. _Lu Han this, Lu Han that_. Well, you know how it is, old boy. You never know how it began or where it ended, only bits and pieces.”

“Junmyeon is here?” Minseok’s heart rate spiked at the news.

“Was here, old boy. Long gone, I’m afraid.”

Junmyeon was there. Gone again, would they ever cross paths in these infinite realities?

Lu Han cleared his throat, gaining the two men’s attention. “I would rather avoid being drawn and quartered, if possible.”

“I like him,” Jongdae whispered, even though Lu Han could clearly hear him in the tiny cell.

“Fine. Whatever we can do to get you out of here we will do. Now save us.” Minseok settled back, his head still throbbing. The energy required for the conversation made him woozy. It was strange, when he travelled like this. There was always a burst of energy, a different feeling...his personality shifting ever so. But still, the fatigue set in.

“That’s what I wanted to hear!” Jongdae’s eyes lit up at the promise. “You'll be saved tomorrow right before they tie the ropes.”

Minseok wondered if that was supposed to be reassuring.

“Now turn in, kids, we have a long night ahead of us. I doubt our cell neighbor will stop bemoaning his fate anytime soon.” Like clockwork a sad wail sounded from somewhere nearby.

Jongdae wasn’t bothered by the anguished cry. He shoved hay to one side of the tiny cell and slumped down, closing his eyes without another word.

Minseok sighed, knowing very well rest was impossible no matter how broken he felt.

 

 

Lu Han scooted next to him a few minutes later, Jongdae emitting low snores, the quiet wail of despair still in the background. Minseok was leaning against the wall of the small cell, waiting, and thinking, Lu Han’s sudden proximity startling him.

“I have seen many strange sights,” Lu Han began quietly, once he was sitting next to Minseok, only a few inches between them. “This by far is the strangest.”

“I dare say it won’t get better,” Minseok muttered.  He knew as much from the times he was wrenched into these strange places. Still, there was a hint of empathy creeping into his mind, a strange feeling. Perhaps, he considered, it was because of what Jongdae had told him – Lu Han was somehow different than the others, could facilitate shifts and open the pathways. Or perhaps, Minseok wagered, he was hit on the head a bit too hard when he travel led.

“I don’t understand any of it,” Lu Han admitted. “I don’t think I ever will.”

Minseok looked over at the adventurer and was surprised to see his lips curled into a smile. The man was smiling in the midst of this chaotic reality. _How strange._

“You seem like you have more energy here,” Lu Han said quietly. “Is that true?”

“Perhaps.” Minseok shifted his position, hugging his knees to his chest. He was acutely aware that in this cramped cell Lu Han was so close, yet he could not understand why that proximity bothered him, why the hair raised on his arms.

“You grandpa, is he–”

Lu Han stopped speaking, his eyes going wide. Minseok glanced at him, then followed his gaze to the door of the cell. Crouched down, her face in the window of the cell, was a woman. A very beautiful woman.

“I have bargained for your release, husband,” she spoke softly, her voice dripping with poise and elegance.

Minseok swallowed. Not again. “I, thank you.”

The woman glared at him, then looked past him to Lu Han. “Please, do not try my patience. The king has been merciful to you, but your lover shall die, as it should be. We shan’t speak of this again, you have embarrassed my pride for more than this lifetime.”

Lu Han looked at Minseok in horror, the two men sharing a look of confusion.

Keys rattled outside and the door was thrown open, a pair of guards shadowing the woman. She stared eagerly at Lu Han, completely ignoring the other two men.

“I--husband?!” Lu Han squeaked, looking at Minseok with wide eyes.

“It happens, kid, get used to it,” Jongdae muttered, rolling over on his small hay pile, stifling a yawn.

“If you dare to stay for his sake I shall never forgive you!” she cried, her eyes sending daggers into Lu Han’s soul.


	10. Guess Who's Back

Lu Han's legs had turned to jelly. The door stood open, the woman glared down a challenge. He could not close his fallen jaw, the shock too great. On top of that he was embarrassed and utterly mortified not only that he had a wife, but that he  _hadn't known_  he had a wife.

He just got here. He'd never been here before. He was in fifteenth century Joseon along with two other time travelelers who had at least had some family curse as an excuse for their ventures,  _but how in all the worlds had Lu Han managed to unknowingly acquire a wife!?_

"Husband?" threw down his  _wife_  one last time. 

Lu Han shot another glance between Minseok and Jongdae. The latter was unperturbed. Minseok looked completely floored and he quickly looked away. "Go," Minseok whispered, with something that sounded like disappointment. Lu Han pretended his tone ended with that, that it didn't sound a little too much like betrayal. 

"But--"

"Go!" said the other, suddenly with more force. "We'll be fine... we'll get out... Jongdae said... so, just leave."

Lu Han wasn't buying it. But he didn't see that he had another option. He held onto the bars just to stand up, strengthening his wobbling legs until they could move on their own and he could leave the cell. Behind him the guards swung the door back shut and the click of the heavy metal lock sounded more like a death sentence for Minseok and Jongdae than he could ever have imagined.

Would he even see them again?! 

He turned and clutched the bars, even as the guards prodded him impatiently away. 

"Wait, Minseok!" he cried. 

His host, his employer, his... Lu Han didn't know what... narrowed his eyes and looked up. "I said, go!"

"But how! How do you get saved if..." His voice trailed off. 

The guards began pulling Lu Han away; his wife was already paces ahead. But still he had to know otherwise Minseok would die, here and now.

Minseok grinned. He said, "Easy. All you have to do is wake me up." As Lu Han grew further and further away, Minseok's face shrank, his voice fading off. And Lu Han half heard, half prayed he heard wrong one last fatal line. "Just hope I don't kill you when that happens."

 

 

 

Outside the prison cells Lu Han could still hardly breathe. They were surrounded by open fields on at least two sides. Lanterns lit up the side of the barracks and partially down a lane which twisted around a low hill. Lu Han barely could make the dark hint of mountains in the far off distance, just enough to verify that he really was in a strange foreign land. His wife was already entering a litter born by four strong men. A riderless horse stood beside it with a servant holding the reins. Lu Han balked only a moment when he realized he was expected to ride it. He had plenty of experience riding horses and other pack animals in his travels, but not usually after being beaten half to death. 

"I can walk," he told the man. 

From inside the litter came a haughty scoff. 

"Get on the horse, husband. Unless you truly do wish to look like a peasant." 

Lu Han did not know this woman, but he recognized that tone, and he obeyed. 

As expected, getting onto the animal was torture. Then there was the inevitable scurrying as he remembered how to handle the reins. The horse shied from side to side, causing a few more of his household to scattered with alarm. At least his wife made no further comment. Lu Han couldn't say he was pleased about this though. He wanted answers. He wondered who she was, when had they married, had Lu Han always been  _present?_ How on earth did this thing even work! Without Minseok there Lu Han was doubly lost and confused.

As the horse cantered along Lu Han went step by step through everything he did know. One, he remembered where and when he born. He knew his childhood, he could remember his parents' faces. He could recite every major adventure and every important figure he'd met in his life right up until being accosted and 'invited' to Minseok's estate. Then, to his knowledge, he had been introduced to that  _machine_  and so far had 'traveled', twice. 

His brain hurt by the time they arrived at whatever new  _old_  home he had now. It seemed set on the the outskirts of the community. A high stone wall separated it from the street. Lu Han slid off his horse at the gate. His wife alighted from the litter. She still looked pissed, and Lu Han guessed he couldn't blame her. He didn't even know her name. 

When he went no further than the gate, however, she turned and stared at him, perhaps less scornfully than before. 

"Center building on the right, in case you've forgotten where to sleep." Then, softer, "you never remember _anything._ "

She went left into a different building, and disappeared. 

Lu Han stood there. "Huh," he said to himself. 

How long would this even last? Before he could remember spending a matter of seconds in that future world, and yet he'd spent the better part of half a day in this one and still there was no tingly unconscious feeling drawing him home. Should he sleep? Minseok was sentenced to death on the morrow. But was Lu Han supposed to go back and save them, or just wait until he himself woke up? What if it took too long and he was too late?! 

He looked around the courtyard, at the packed dirt under his feet, at the line of Joseon era buildings with their papered windows and screens. An old woman sat comfortably on the porch beside the the center building. She was awake and staring right at him, a knowing smile on her lips. Lu Han walked to her and the closer he got the more she smiled. Lu Han felt drawn to her, as if she was the clue he had somehow been missing. 

When he stood before her she did not get up. But dotingly, she cooed aloud. "There you are, now... finally..."

Lu Han gulped. "You've, you've been waiting for me?"

She nodded. "Oh yes, and for quite a long time now." She patted the steps next to her. Lu Han sat down. 

"Do... do you know who I am?"

For a second Lu Han feared he was misreading the situation, that perhaps she really was just an old retainer in this particular estate. She certainly regarded him strangely. 

"Do  _you_  know who you are?" she asked instead. 

Lu Han blinked. He started, slowly. "My name is Lu Han?" 

The old woman laughed. "Well of course you are. My name is Mae Chang. Maybe you don't know it yet. Not many people do. I am not as famous _there_ , as perhaps I am here."

"Do you mean there as in..."

"As in the place I was truly born? Yes." She sighed dreamily, regretfully. "But I cannot easily pass back into that world. And if I did I would not find much there to live for. My children are all scattered now. That doesn't mean I don't see them though, from time to time. They are drawn to this place. I suspect they are drawn to every place, where  _you_  are, actually. And so I sit around here, and I take care of the lady, your wife. It is a thankless job, but she is fully of this world and is ignorant of all others."

As Lu Han mulled this other, his mind bubbling up with questions which he could not put into words, she reached other and gently took his hand. "And how is Minseok, dear? Over there?" 

Lu Han stuttered a bit. "I... I don't really know. You know Minseok? Is he your son?"

She shook her head. "Oh, no. He is not. But all of us know him. We know he is the one who will put a stop to this curse."

"The curse?" Lu Han asked, curious to know more. Mae Chang, however, continued talking. 

"We know he is the last of us to have to live this way. You see, he is the youngest. There aren't any younger than he, traveling. Not in any of the lines of descendants. They all stop short with him. I used to ponder in my youth, that Minseok maybe died young, or childless, and that is how the curse would be broken, but you see, he isn't the only one his age. There are cousins, so many cousins, and all their children and grandchildren and every one of them are still traveling. But then Minseok was born, the youngest of that generation, and all of a sudden there are no more wanderers in his plane or any of the others. If they are born, they are born there in the right place and they must die there in the right place, but they don't pass onto here... And then Junmyeon came to me and told me about Minseok and the machine he was building, and about you, and I finally knew it! I knew Minseok had broken the curse and that he'd found the key! Everybody knows it but we don't understand how, that's why you're so important Lu Han. You will explain it to us. When you understand it yourself."

More and more there grew a buzzing in Lu Han's ears.

"Junmyeon?" It was the only name he recognized. 

"Yes, he is one of my children, my only boy..." She sighed. 

Lu Han cried out, suddenly doubling over in pain. He clutched his head where a sharp spasm originated and pulsed. 

The old woman held his back. "There now, it's starting. It's drawing you home. Don't mind the lady, I will take care of her and she does well. Visit us again though soon, Lu Han. It was good to meet you... It always is..."

Her voice grew soft, Lu Han's vision blurred. Just like before he felt gravity coming up to meet him, pulling hiM under, swallowing him whole. He cried, and sweat dampened every pore, and his body twisted and contorted in on itself, sucked into the vortex of whatever curse-filled channel...

Then he awoke! Gasping, his arms and legs thrashing. A quiet light greeted his eyes, and Yixing stood over him looking alarming, overly fixated. 

"Minseok!" Lu Han cried out. Wires disconnected in a flash as he scrambled out of the chair, rushing, seeking... there, that bed he hadn't noticed before. Minseok lay there sleeping, sweating, writhing in pain, and Lu Han ran to him. He shook him first, "Minseok, wake up! Wake up or you'll die!" before Yixing was on him, shoving him aside. 

"What are you doing?!" roared the servant. "You'll put him into shock if you do that!"

But Lu Han wasn't listening. Before his eyes he was imagining Minseok, limbs bound by rope, face bloodied and about to die, and all he knew was that he could not let that happen. He thought of Jongdae, saying somehow they would saved, and Lu Han  _wished_ for that, as hard as he'd ever wished before. 

"Minseok, come on... come on, wake up," he screamed, ignoring Yixing. "Come on, Minseok. Damnit, Jongdae said... he said..."

He slapped Minseok's face, and with a jolt the man sat upright in horror. Both Lu Han and Yixing froze. Then Minseok turned to him, and like before Lu Han saw a rage building inside him. 

"Uhm... Minseok?" he said warily.

But Minseok wasn't looking at Lu Han. 

From behind him, a fourth body with an older man's face, was laughing in joyous surprise. It was a face Lu Han knew, but it wasn't Jongdae. "Ha ha! I'm back! I'm really back!"

Minseok growled and said only two evil words. _"Kim. Junmyeon..."_


	11. A Surprising Tree

Minseok launched himself towards the visage of the man, his rage blinding him to all else. Kim Junmyeon laughing, joyful-- his happiness fueling Minseok’s rage.

Yixing managed to stand between the two men, catching Minseok before he could assault his uncle. Minseok had a vague idea that Lu Han was there too, helping to hold him back.

“My, my, your temper is really something.” Junmyeon whistled, not bothering to take a step backwards to avoid any potential attack.

“How are you here?” Minseok hissed, struggling to break free of the hands that held him back.

“Sir, please calm down,” Yixing plead.

“Your guess is as good as mine, old boy.” Junmyeon shrugged. “I’m very happy to be home, if it makes you feel better.”

It didn’t make Minseok feel better. The anger was overpowering, then the waves of anguish that always followed. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes while Yixing urged him to remain calm. Wave after wave of strong emotion spurring him to assault his relative.

“Minseok, please, it’s okay.”

A voice softer than Yixing’s, closer if that was possible. It was Lu Han and for some inexplicable reason it gave Minseok pause. He turned his head to look at Lu Han in surprise, uncertain why a few words from him took the edge off.

Lu Han looked worried, his brow furrowed. Minseok had a sudden urge to ask him to speak, to say something, to make it better. But why? Only a day ago… (had it been that long?) he had attacked Lu Han during a similar episode. Yet, it was Lu Han who had pinned him down and held him until his rage had dissipated. What was going on? How weak could he be in front of this person? Why did a few words soothe him?

“I’m happy you are okay. I was so worried when I woke up--” Luhan rambled.

“Let me go. I’m fine,” Minseok said with an even tone, interrupting Lu Han. He had to be calm now. He had to stop Lu Han’s effect on him, it was too worrying.

Yixing sensed the normalcy returning to his master and let go of his arm, Lu Han followed suit a few seconds later. Both men stepped back a few feet, giving Minseok space.

Now free, Minseok straightened his posture, smoothing a hand down his wrinkled clothing to right his appearance.

“I can’t help but disapprove with what you’ve done with the ballroom. Minseok, this was your grandmother’s pride and joy. She would faint if she were to see it now,” Junmyeon admonished. He wandered around the ballroom, glancing at the machine and the worktables.

Minseok ignored the comment. He walked towards Junmyeon, staying a few steps behind his uncle as he toured the space. “Where were you last? Jongdae said you were in Joseon during the first literati purge but left. How did you get here?”

It was the first time any of his ancestors had returned. It was as much nonsensical as it was shocking.

Junmyeon hummed in agreement. “That I was, but I dare say I left before you arrived. Nasty, being charged with treason.” He paused in front of the diagram Minseok left splayed open on the larger worktable. Bending over to look at it closer, he continued explaining his latest whereabouts. “I was in two thousand seventeen last, talking to you actually.” Junmyeon spun on his heels and looked towards Lu Han. “Well, one of you. And my, you do have a rather interesting well of knowledge.”

“Me?” Lu Han asked, dumbfounded.

“Yes, you,” Junmyeon confirmed. “Shall we discuss it over tea? I am positively famished.”

Minseok nodded, feeling a tad bit parched himself.

  
  


“Imagine a maple tree in autumn. Every leaf that falls to the ground brings the tree closer to dormancy. Now exchange those leaves for incarnations of a person, and that is what is happening.” They were seated in Minseok’s study, a dying fire flickering in the hearth. Junmyeon had taken it upon himself to explain the situation to Lu Han yet again -- because clearly (his words) Minseok hadn’t done a very good job of it. Despite Minseok’s protests, Junmyeon promised Lu Han needed to understand before he could possibly divulge how he had arrived at this place and time.

“Each leaf goes to a different time and place but is relatively weak away from the tree, shriveling up now they are no longer attached.  The wind blows, scattering the leaves in an infinitely confusing order. Once all the leaves are gone from the branches dormancy sets in for the tree. The tree, in this case, happens to be the person in their own place and time. Once we are fragmented beyond recognition, our leaves so to speak scattered, we disappear from where we should be rooted - our present.”

Minseok sipped on his tea, observing Lu Han as he took in the information. He nodded furiously. “I think I understand now! But how did it happen? The leaves falling - no, I mean, the split?”

“Easy. Someone meddled with the very order of things, causing an eternal summer to change to a slow and painful autumn,” Junmyeon answered. “Starting the march towards dormancy for the entire family.”

“The man who I must kill?” Lu Han blurted out, looking at Minseok.

Minseok steadied his hand from shaking. He knew Junmyeon was giving him a questioning look. “Perhaps.”

“Oh-ho, you plan on murdering the instigator? Well, you are far more aggressive than I thought,” Junmyeon butted in.

“Do you have other ideas on how to stop it?” Minseok countered. “You must know something, considering you are here. _The prodigal tree, Kim Junmyeon_ ,” he added dryly.

Lu Han snorted at his joke. Minseok couldn’t help but smile at the reaction. Even Junmyeon laughed.

“We need to go to the exact time that our family was pushed into autumn and stop it from happening, though I dare say murder may be a bit of a strong method given the circumstances.” Junmyeon set his teacup on the walnut end table.

“You know when it started?” Minseok sat on the edge of his seat, excited.

“Indeed. As you well know time is not as linear as people would like to think. The event was before but also after, a very confusing thing for most people.” Junmyeon waved his hand dismissively in the air. “Lu Han came to understand because he was the one who put an end to it. It just took me some good many years to finally meet him and then return to tell you. Of course, right now it is only a concept of an end, but an end that has already happened to some versions and in some places.”

“Who is it?!” Minseok insisted. “Who was the one who cursed us?!”

Junmyeon stared at Minseok for a few seconds before answering. “It was you, my dear boy, the moment you started on that machine of yours. You opened the path all because you thought it had already begun. So, you see, the only way to end this is to stop you from building that machine, which Lu Han did. Or will do. Or has done depending on the time and place. You understand, I hope.”

Minseok stiffened. “There is no possible way that I-”

Junmyeon held his hand up to stop him. “It is true. Though of course you think you were ending the madness in all actuality you were starting it.”

It was impossible, Minseok thought. How could he have started something that had begun generations ago? Sure, time was not as linear as most people assumed it was. But, could he really have brought upon a curse by trying to break it?! Ludicrous!

“How do I stop it?” Lu Han asked quietly, earning looks from both members of the Kim family.

“A sensible question!” Junmyeon snapped his fingers. “You, my dear boy, will lure our poor, lonely, half mad-- society's words, not mine -- youngest Kim out of his forbidding mansion and into the world at large before he can start on his machine.” Junmyeon smiled widely, making Minseok’s skin crawl. “You are going to make him trust you, fall in love with you, and only then will he give up on all this machine nonsense and get on with his life.”

“It isn’t nonsense!” Minseok protested before stopping himself. “Wait, did you say fall in love?”

“Yes, I did.” Junmyeon looked smugly between Lu Han and Minseok. “It seems that once you give up being a miserly madman and take a few tumbles with Lu Han here you gain a good deal of sense.”

Minseok’s cheeks flamed. _Tumbles?!_

“Remember, Minseok, you started it. It is your gentlemanly duty to end it. Well, _younger you_ started it, but you understand.”

“How?” Was Lu Han really asking this calmly? Minseok felt sick.

“That machine of yours has calibrations. Thankfully the last time I spoke to you,” Junmyeon looked to Lu Han. “You were able to provide me the correct ones. So off you both go to ten years ago. Work your magic and this nightmare will be over.”

“Can’t I just go back and not build the machine?” Minseok grasped at straws, anything to get out of what Junmyeon was suggesting.

“Afraid not. Left to your own devices,” Junmyeon stopped to laugh at his pun before continuing. “You won’t dare to stop --even after this conversation. You are a headstrong and suspicious man, Minseok.  You need to learn how to live again and Lu Han is going to help you do that. Once you trust him, once you understand, then you will stop.”

Minseok dared to glance at Lu Han, to lock eyes with him. Fall in love? Give up the machine? Sure, they were engaged but that was a matter of convenience! Love?! Love?!!!

A mad world had just become that much more maddening.

 


	12. A Better Me

It was later in the evening now. Lu Han chewed on his lower lip, desperate to keep straight in his head everything he'd heard explained. Across the ballroom Minseok was conferring with Yixing about something in a frantic whisper. Junmyeon stood beside the machine and examined his nails. He looked impatient of a sort, but Lu Han couldn't put a finger on it. Perhaps he really was just in a hurry for this 'nightmare' as he so called it to come to an end. A nightmare he'd said only Lu Han could fix. 

Lu Han stared at the machine. Despite the fact it had practically scared him to death when Minseok first pointed it out, it looked so innocuous now. What had seemed large was now quite small in the grand scheme of the world, and Lu Han had visited now several different worlds. If everything he'd been told was true, he would be visiting others too in the future, or the past. But how? And Why? Because somehow Lu Han had figured out a solution to a problem in a future timeline that no one has as yet been able to solve? 

He shook his head, recognizing the beginnings of another headache setting in. Something was wrong. Something didn't make sense. And Junmyeon's suggestion to just zap Lu Han back into the past and stop Minseok was building a machine seemed almost... too easy? Never mind the fact he had no idea how he was supposed to 'woo' Minseok in the first place. Or was it in the last place. Or the middle place- oh, bother! 

"My good man, is something the matter?" asked Junmyeon.

Lu Han stared abruptly at him. 

"No. Nothing." He smiled. 

Across the ballroom Minseok was finally coming this direction. He was  _not_  smiling. 

In some forgotten corner of the room, a rat squeaked. 

"Okay," said Minseok. "Junmyeon tell us this calibration you apparently worked out from Luhan in the future. And then let's get on with this."

He looked so eager to go. Too eager, Lu Han thought. 

Junmyeon approached the side of the machine with Minseok's dials. "I know it. I can enter it for you."

"No, thank you," said Minseok. "You can tell me, and  _I_  will enter the numbers. I think you underestimate me, uncle, but I do know some things about this machine you claim I should never have created. Are ten years enough time? I recall beginning work on this project at least eight or nine years ago, but then I've also lived fragments of a thousand other lives since then, so..." He began fidgeting with the dials.

"Ten years, yes. And... here." From his jacket pocket he handed Minseok a small pad of paper. Whatever was written on it Lu Han could not tell, but Minseok looked it over and seemed satisfied. 

"Lu Han? Please?" Minseok pointed him to the chair. As with every time before Lu Han sat carefully onto the device and leaned back. Minseok swiftly applied the wires about his body. Lu Han closed his eyes hard for one final moment, then opened them anew. He saw Yixing hovering close at hand. He saw Minseok nodding to the servant with great, hidden meaning. He saw Junmyeon smiling... oddly triumphant. The rat squeaked, again. 

Someone screamed. "Baekhyun what have you--!" 

But then Lu Han was gone. Sucked into the veil of time, his body spasmed and torqued. He cried aloud but there was nobody to hear him. His head felt like bursting, his stomach twisted like he was about to vomit. However long it took, he could not say... 

With a jolt, everything stopped. And Lu Han did throw up, this time. Pebbles pressed under his palms, his knees were bruised. Panicked, Lu Han looked up and saw he was alone and in a dark alleyway. A carriage rumbled past on the nearest main street. 

"Ten years ago, indeed..." he said in wonder. And he smiled, because Lu Han _definitely_ knew this place. In fact, he was practically home. At least the home he'd had in the city exactly--

"Ten years ago, indeed," said an echo to his back. 

Lu Han flung around. Contrary to what he'd thought, he was not alone in the alley. Behind him on the ground there was a man, about his height and build wearing a similar calf length wool coat, stockings and boots. He had not gotten up yet, was still on all fours kneeling awkwardly on the ground. Kind of like Lu Han had been just seconds before.

"What... nightmare is this," said Lu Han.

His eyes enflamed on the second man, who looked up suddenly and said, "Excuse me, I think that was  _my line_." 

Then Lu Han stood up before him. Or, a man who looked exactly like Lu Han. 

"What... who are you...?" asked Lu Han to the second Lu Han. 

The second one chuckled. "I'm you, obviously. Oh please tell me I got the calibrations right this time. Is this not the place where you first went back ten years in time? If not, Minseok is going to kill me for getting it wrong."

Lu Han paled completely in the moonlight. "Minseok... sent you... I mean, me, back  _two times?_ " 

The other him smiled. "Well, not sequentially of course. How was he to know the first time that dear old Uncle Junmyeon was setting us up! Though he did reason something was fishy, as did you I believe. Or myself. One of us, or both. How odd. I always knew talking to myself was going to be interesting but this is especially hard. Walk with me and let's get this show started, alright?"

"I don't understand," said Lu Han to his doppelgänger. 

"Of course you don't, but if we don't hurry we'll miss our window of opportunity. Minseok is waiting for us, and unfortunately... poor old boy at this point in his life hasn't met either of us. Let's try not to shock him too badly. Don't worry though, I'll be here to walk you through everything we need to do. You do trust me, right? I am you after all."

Lu Han didn't actually. He trusted that his eyes were looking at someone who looked exactly like himself, at a person who knew what Lu Han knew and more besides. He just didn't know how to tell _himself_  that he was scared and terribly confused. "You said Minseok was waiting. Is it just the one or did both of you come back too?"

The other Lu Han shook his head. "No. It doesn't work that way. Minseok, and all his family, they're technically.... you remember that tree metaphor that scoundrel Junmyeon told us about? Well he's right in the sense that their bodies are connected to a single tree, so to speak. But the leaves... seriously it's a crazy metaphor in that it actually makes sense... well, the leaves are both interrelated, and not. When any of them in their original tree form falls asleep they scatter across time and space, and that's how they leave those echoes everywhere they've been. But when they wake up, they're back to being a tree. Now if, as most of them do, if they  _return_  to somewhere they've already been, they basically step into the same self! Those fragments never disappear after the main body awakens; they just keep on existing  _in those timelines_  until they die there. That's part of their curse, they live everywhere but they also die everywhere and when the main tree dies, they're stuck, forever living, forever dying. Sad isn't it? That's why we've got to go get Minseok and save him from that fate." 

They had come to a back door way that Lu Han recognized as a the back entrance to his townhome. He fiddled in his pockets for a key, but the other Lu Han laughed. "You forgot your key the first time. Here, I remembered it this time, so be sure to thank yourself." He winked. Lu Han balked. 

"We're not going to find the original Lu Han who lived here at this time, right?" he just had to ask. 

The other one laughed. "At least now you're thinking right. But nah, pretty sure he's out of town this week. Doesn't mean we don't need to keep a watch out for him though. See, the difference between us and the Kim family... whenever we travel using Minseok's device, we don't meet and reincorporate into the previously existing self. We just keep leaving more and more copies in the same damn place. Can get a little crowded, if you know what I mean." 

They stepped inside, Lu Han wondering at this place he hadn't visited in ten years. It was dark, familiar, homey. 

"Wait a sec," he stopped and asked his other self. "What  _about_ Minseok's device? Aren't I... we... here to make him forget about making it?"

The other Lu Han grinned in a matter Lu Han recognized well enough from his younger days of adventure and debauchery. "Well, not exactly."

"So... we're not supposed to woo him?" The thought disappointed him.

Until the other said, "Oh... we still need to woo him. And Lu Han, my favorite self, the wooing part is... awesome!

 


	13. One Pill Makes You....

**Warnings - Character death!**

The small white rat seemed to sense that something was afoot, he escaped his cage the moment that Lu Han fell under the spell of the machine. At times Minseok wondered if he would ever meet a person as perceptive as Baekhyun.

“Baekhyun, what have you done!” Yixing shouted after the rat, frowning at the mess the rat made when he knocked over a cup of tea in his bid for escape. It would fall to the servant to clean it up.

“Yixing, the medication, please.” Minseok directed his servant’s attention away from the mess.

“Yes, sir.” Yixing gave the spill one last frown before walking to Minseok.

Minseok glanced to where Junmyeon stood near one of the work tables. His uncle was watching him with a curious expression but remained mum, not daring to ask what his plans were.

Yixing produced a small handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to his master. Minseok took the offering, carefully opening the cloth to reveal a small pill. It was useful to have such a thing around in instances like this, when you needed to dispose of someone posthaste without a mess.

Minseok approached the machine. Lu Han’s mind was gone to ten years prior, only his body remaining. With each step Minseok’s resolve grew. He had to do this, for a multitude of reasons.

He had found himself relying on Lu Han a little too much. There were strange feelings between them, feelings Minseok didn’t like. And of course, there was Junmyeon, instructing Lu Han to stop the machine from ever being built. No matter what his uncle said, Minseok had a hard time believing his precious machine started the mess. He placated Junmyeon by using his calibrations, but that would be temporary. It was time to destroy the greatest threat.

Lu Han’s mouth was slightly open, his breathing deep. It was far too easy for Minseok to break open the capsule and pour the contents into the man’s mouth. It was far too easy to take a step back and watch his complexion slowly change from one of warmth, of life, to the pallor of death. Minseok watched Lu Han’s breathing slow until his chest no longer moved up and down.  

The ballroom was eerily silent during the process, Junmyeon not uttering a word. Once Lu Han was pale and no longer breathing Minseok approached him and felt for signs of life. Nothing. He was deceased. Oddly enough, Minseok considered, he didn’t feel guilty or remorseful. Whatever strange bond had formed between them was weak for the only emotion that plagued him was relief.

Should he have felt more? Yes, he had heard Lu Han was a key to lifting the curse, but then again hadn’t he heard that about others here and there? Time was a fickle thing, always changing. And no matter how much Lu Han seemed to fit into the crazy scheme, the desperate plans of Minseok, the fact remained -- he had become a liability. He was ready to stop the machine.

“You certainly love your machine, old boy,” Junmyeon muttered from across the room.

Minseok glanced at him. “After much thought, uncle, I don’t believe your theory one bit. And there are others like him.” Minseok gestured towards Lu Han’s corpse. “He isn’t the first who failed.” Minseok turned to Yixing. “Please dispose of him.”

“Yes, sir,” Yixing dutifully answered. Minseok helped to disconnect Lu Han’s lifeless body from the machine before his servant carried off the limp body, rigor mortis yet to set in.

“How about a drink old boy?” Junmyeon meandered towards his nephew. “I haven’t been in the wine cellar for...a long time.”

Minseok considered the offer. “I think I would like that very much.”

  
  
  


“I’m telling you, it was that macchhhhine that sssstarted it,” Junmyeon slurred his words, tongue thick from too much wine.

“I don’t believe you,” Minseok hiccupped. “You’ve always made trouble, why would you tell the truth now.”

The family members were seated in the dining room, the long table displaying a scattering of half empty, completely empty, and a few full wine bottles. They were both well into their cups.

“It’s true. You just won’t believe me because you like that thing.” Junmyeon whirled his hand towards the general direction of the ballroom and the machine. “But what do I care, I’m back. The other poor sods are the ones in trouble, not me. Not anymore.” He grabbed his wine glass and held it high. “I’m living how I should.”

Minseok smirked at the hazy image of his uncle, his eyes unfocused from the wine. “I don’t want you living here.”

“It’s my family home too!” Junmyeon protested, wine sloshing onto the table.

“Wassss,” Minseok corrected him.

Junmyeon snorted and leaned back in his chair. Folding his arms against his chest he gave Minseok an injured look. “If only you knew the truth.”

“You never tell the truth,” Minseok countered. He reached for a wine bottle but his balance was off. He ended up banging his hand onto the table, a dull thud accompanied by a sharp pain. He grabbed his hand, holding it up as it began to throb.

“Minseok, I’m being serious.” Junmyeon almost sounded sober, it got Minseok’s attention. He observed his uncle, curious about this truth.

“What?”

“Minseok….” Junmyeon’s expression turned emotional, tears glimmered in his eyes. “I am your father.”

Minseok stilled. “No. No! That’s not true! _That’s impossible_!” It was nonsense. His father was Junmyeon’s cousin (the title of uncle was loosely used in the Kim family).

“Search your feelings, Minseok, you know it is true.” Junmyeon swallowed, quickly sobering. “Your mother and I... we...your father never knew who it was but he knew you weren’t his.”

Minseok felt like crying. Junmyeon was his father?! How could this be reality? “Nooooo!”

“Minseok, it’s true. Where else would you get your sense of humor from?! _Prodigal tree_? Remember? That is something I would say.” Junmyeon pursed his lips, his eyes hopeful. “I wanted to tell you before but our paths never crossed again until now. Lies, so many lies in this family and hidden truths. Minseok, together we can rule this family as father and son, right all the wrongs, see it flourish again.”

“Who else knows?” Minseok sat up straight, mind reeling, trying to figure out how it all fit in and what to do about it if it was true.

“No one. Only your mother and I,” Junmyeon promised. “Minseok, we would make a great team.”

Minseok frowned at the suggestion. Life was never easy, no matter how many bodies Yixing dragged away under the cover of night. How positively frustrating.


	14. The Chicken and the Egg

"Alright," said the second Lu Han to the first. "There he is... Kim Minseok, in the flesh. The actual original flesh too, just... oh wow... Look at how young he is here..." 

Lu Han could barely make out Minseok in the near dark. On the other hand, he was still rather impressed to see _himself._ Lu Han stared at him, this  _same person,_ with true wonder and deep curiosity. It was uncanny still, that they could exist, that he could be staring at a replica of himself just a few years removed. For Lu senior, as Lu Han had silently dubbed him, was a bare five years older in his particular timeline. Five years older with hundreds of worlds between them. He shook his head because it had started to hurt again. They were on a stakeout, hiding behind a low wall in someone's front lawn. Across the street was the residence of the Kim family, whenever they happened to be in town, which in Minseok's case was almost never. Even at this age, he'd been a recluse, a reputation already stained beyond repair. But right now Kim Minseok, ten years younger than when Lu Han had met him, was actually here...

At the sight of him, Lu Han's breath actually caught in his throat. Barely past twenty years old, Minseok looked as handsome as ever. Lu senior nudged his elbow. "Ready?" he asked. 

Lu Han sighed. "Not really, but I guess we don't have a choice. Let's go..."

Minseok had exited the front door of his townhome. A carriage was already on the curb waiting for him. Lu senior shot out of the dark as soon as he was in the carriage and hailed another cab. They were inside it before Minseok's had gone more than halfway down the block. 

"Follow that carriage, please, slowly," Lu Han told the driver. The man cracked his reins and the horse began to trot. The other Lu Han sat with his head out of the window, observing the road and where Minseok was going. 

"Shouldn't be far," he said. "He's heading to some small shop in the grocers' district."

"You don't know what's inside?"

The other Lu Han shook his head. "I do, but I'm not the one who gets to go in. I didn't make it that far before I was called back to _my current present._ Besides, don't want to deprive you the pleasure of getting to meet Minseok this way." He smirked. 

Lu Han frowned. "So you have only... what, another ten minutes?" 

The other nodded, but that made Lu Han also wonder.

"So what about me? Do you remember how long I get to be here for? Seems like the last two times I... travelled... I woke up for some reason back where I started."

Lu senior's smirk turned into a frown. "Well... Kind of sucks actually, that I already knew you were going to ask this. And unfortunately I have to tell you something important. It's the only thing I can do for you here until the next time I drop back in which... if I remember correctly, is in about a week." He was biting his lower lip, like he was about to step into the role of bearer of bad news.

"What is it?" Lu Han's hear trate slowed. 

The other Lu Han continued staring out the window, scratching his head. "Okay. So, don't take this  _too_ personally, alright? But, you don't get to wake up this time. Uhm, that's kind of the reason why you've  _got_ to get Minseok to trust you in this world and have him build that machine. It's the, uhm... only way you get back."

Lu Han didn't understand. "Huh?" The carriage continued to rumble along, turning several corners into what looked like another shady area of town. 

"Yep. If you want to live, that's how you get back. See, uhm, you  _died."_

_"I died?!"_ Lu Han shouted. 

_"_ Hush, hush! Keep it down!" cautioned his doppelgänger. 

Lu Han whispered, still enraged. "I died??"

"Yeah. See, Minseok didn't trust you, us, or whatever. So he killed you, us. Look, don't panic okay! We're not actually dead. I mean, look at me, I'm definitely not dead. It's just imperative we get back to that timeline so we can stop Junmyeon from manipulation Minseok into doing something disastrous. You'll... see what after you get back. Also, I should tell you this now because this is in our script: When you do get back to your present, tell Minseok his dear old uncle is not only a lying son of a bitch who would like to see everyone dead, but also... guy seriously watches too much Star Wars. Ripping lines from it and everything. He's  _not_ Minseok's father, okay? Just tell Minseok that."

"Why would I tell Minseok anything?!" Lu Han cried. "He killed me! I can't believe he killed me! And what on earth is this Star Wars?"

"A great movie series from the late 20th century. You'll love it. Minseok and I watched it together like twenty times." 

"You watch—I don't even know what a 'movie' is—with a guy who murdered you?"

"Of course! I told you, don't take it so personal. Minseok and I, we're like soulmates. There have just been a few rocky patches on the way to getting there. Okay, my time's up. MInseok's waiting, and who knows what kind of trouble Baekhyun has gotten into this time so, bye! Have fun! Make him love you, okay?"

Then the next second Lu Han was gone. Vanished right into thin air. 

"Is that what I look like when I suddenly wake up too?" Lu Han thought. His brain was still reeling. Firstly, he was apparently  _dead_  in another universe. He'd never _wake up_  from this exact timeline until he met Minseok and got in his machine. Secondly, that same person who made him dead was—is?!—his soulmate?! 

He barely realized that the carriage had come to a stop. The driver knocked on the hood of the cab. "Sir, the er... carriage we followed has come to a stop up ahead."

Dead or not, soulmate or not, time-traveling adventurer or not... apparently he had a mission to accomplish. Would he accomplish it? Or had he _already accomplished it?_ Lu Han banged his head on the cab door for one second. Then he jumped out, head on straight and focused to the tee. If he wanted to live, he had to woo Minseok. Poor, young, reclusive Kim Minseok with the weight of an entire family's curse on his shoulders. Junmyeon said he needed to destroy the machine to cure the problem. But Lu senior claimed that was a lie. And right now, Lu Han was one hundred percent more guaranteed to trust in  _himself_  . 

 

 

 

_In a darkened shop, Minseok stands tinkering over a selection of chemicals and chemical formulas. Enter Lu Han, intentionally clumsy._

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to run into you..."

"Hmm? Did you say something?"

 

 

_Before a large brass knocker, Lu Han clutches his collar and trembles. The door opens, featuring a crabby looking Minseok with dark circles under his eyes._

"Oh hi! My name's Lu Han. We met on accident last night, do you remember? At the apothecary? I couldn't help noticing, you left this book behind on the counter. The shopkeeper asked me if I could return it to you... I sort of claimed I knew you. You probably don't remember me, uhm... we met, a few years ago?"

"Is that my volume of Keats? I'm sorry if I don't remember you. Thank you for the book though, good day."

 

 

_In the shadows before Minseok's front door, Lu Han creeps in wait. Following the chime of a neighborhood clock, a carriage pulls up to the curb. Lu Han rushes towards it as its owner reaches the step._

"Kim Minseok! Hi, hey, I just wanted to ask you something about— Okay, never mind, just ignore me and drive away. I'm a creepy time-traveling stalker. Oh bollocks! How am I even supposed to do this?"

 

 

"So have you made any progress with Minseok?"

Lu Han jumped straight of his chair. The time was somewhere after breakfast, before the noon meal. He'd been sitting morosely thinking about his failed endeavors when Lu senior materialized in front of him, one week later as promised. Lu Han glared at him. "You know I haven't, and yet you come to mock me? How are you even here? Doesn't you visiting the past to influence it create some crazy kind of paradox or something?"

The second Lu Han was looking a little haggard, but he condescended to sit down and explain it. "Not really. See, when I was in your shoes before, my memories are of of  _me_  showing up and helping me through this. There's no difference between my past and yours right now. You never did come ten years back to woo Minseok and  _not_  have my help."

Lu Han stared at him. "I don't get it."

Lu senior sighed. "There's a place I have traveled to where people are always asking this question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Lu Han blinked. 

"Well, the problem with this question isn't that we can't answer the question. The problem is in the question itself! It's meaningless to ask what came first because it's  _the entire cycle_  that is important. Chicken or egg, neither matters. All that matters is that both are currently in existence. You and me, we are both in existence, together, harmoniously. Make sense?"

Lu Han blinked again. "No. Yes, no. I don't know. Can I ask you two random questions though that doesn't have to do with a chicken or an egg?"

"Of course. I already know what you're going to ask."

Lu Han cleared his throat uncomfortable. "Okay, if as you say, everything that's happening right now was already meant to happen, why didn't Minseok remember me when I met in the future?"

"Because there's going to be an accident with the device sometime in the future, cutting off everything he knew and screwing up his memory."

Lu Han balked at that. "Wow. You mean I came here to woo him because he's my soulmate and needs to save my life, but he's going to forget about all that in the future and then outright murder me?" 

The other Lu Han checked his watch. "Exactly. Right, time for me to go now. Oh, and to answer your other question which you haven't asked you, how about you try another tactic to get Minseok to notice you."

"What? What other tactic."

Lu senior smiled. Shivers ran down Lu Han's spine from the sheer creepiness of that grin. 

"It's an old tactic. Tried and true."

"Uh huh? What is it?"

"Pure, honest, blunt as a hammer truth."  

He vanished. 

 

 

 

_Lu han pounds on the door of Minseok's townhome. He's ignored for an entire ten minutes when finally, the door creaks open angrily on its hinges._

"What do you want?!" 

"Uhm, oh good you opened the door. Kim Minseok, I just need to you listen to me. I know everything! I know about your family curse! I know that you time-walk whenever you fall asleep and leave imprints of yourself across time and space! My name is Lu Han, I think we're soulmates or something but you've got to help me because I'm stuck here in this timeline until you can create a machine to get me back, and oh my god, you are really, really hot!" 


	15. Common Interests

Minseok could barely make out the words coming from the mysterious caller, catching only a select few. Something about family, a timeline...and _hot_?

Baekhyun’s response, however, he could hear quite clearly. “It is Baekhyun, not Minseok, and yes, I am attractive. I fully admit it.”

When the rapping on the front door began (nearly ten minutes ago) the two friends had argued who would answer it. Minseok said to leave it, Baekhyun was curious who could be calling at this ungodly hour (Minseok reasoned that it was someone up to no good as it was far too early to call on a person if one operated by the rules of polite society). Baekhyun won the argument and made his way to the front door, Minseok hanging back in the drawing room, sipping his morning tea.

“Perhaps but I am not a rat, sir! I can assure you of that,” was the next outburst Minseok heard from his friend before his words became hushed, Minseok no longer able to discern what he was talking about. A few minutes passed where all Minseok could make out was the low noise of a conversation he wasn’t meant to hear. It was strange.

Curious what was going on, he stood and meandered towards the entryway. Minseok had one foot on the black and white tiled floor of the entrance hall when Baekhyun stood aside and opened the door widely, revealing their guest.

He stood framed in the morning light, his hair carefully styled back to reveal fine features. He was easy on the eyes and he was also familiar. It was the man he had met at the apothecary and then again when he returned his book. He looked past Baekhyun, eyes locking with Minseok’s. An unsettling feeling overcame Minseok at the gaze.

“Minseok,” Baekhyun exclaimed when he noticed Minseok standing there. “My old friend…”

“Lu Han,” the man said firmly.

“Yes, my old friend Lu Han, is here to visit,” Baekhyun said cheerfully, ushering the other man inside. “Kim Minseok is the one I told you about, Lu Han.”

Minseok stood awkwardly in the entrance to the drawing room, pondering the odd exchange he had just witnessed. “How do you know each other?” he queried. He thought he knew all Baekhyun’s friends, they were his friends as well, after all.

“Our fathers were friends,” Lu Han answered quickly.

Baekhyun nodded in agreement. “We were just having morning tea. Minseok, I wager it is acceptable if Lu Han joins us? I had told him where to call on me when I was in town, it had slipped my mind completely to notify you.”

Minseok glanced at the stranger. “I suppose.”

Lu Han offered him a small smile which only served to increase the uneasy feeling.

The three men retreated to the drawing room, Minseok and Baekhyun reclaiming their seats while Lu Han chose to sit on the settee to Minseok’s right.

“You said we had met a few years back,” Minseok said softly. “Was Baekhyun there?” Minseok looked at Baekhyun after asking the question, noting that his friend looked at Lu Han with wide eyes.

“Um. No, he was--” Lu Han started, only to have Baekhyun finish for him.

“I was on the continent at the time. Surely you remember when I took my grand tour,” Baekhyun glanced at Minseok.

Minseok nodded. “Yes, I do.” How could he forget, Baekhyun had nagged him for a solid year to accompany him, caring little for Minseok’s excuses.

“Ahhhh,” Baekhyun bolted up, snapping his fingers. “I forgot, I have somewhere I must...go, or something. Yes, very important engagement. Totally slipped my mind. Minseok, please keep Lu Han company for me.” He hurried from the room, moving so quickly Minseok didn’t even get to protest. The shuffling of Baekhyun’s coat and the slam of the front door followed a few seconds later, his friend gone before he could comprehend what was happening.

Minseok blinked in confusion. Baekhyun and an appointment? Not bloody likely, especially not in the morning. He hated doing anything productive before four in the afternoon. It was a trait that made Minseok periodically regret keeping him company, especially at a time like this, when he needed to work as quickly and as efficiently as possible regardless of the time of day.

The atmosphere was suddenly extremely awkward. Neither man said anything for almost a minute after Baekhyun left. It was Lu Han who finally broke the silence.

“You have a lovely home,” he commented.

“Um, thank you,” Minseok stared into his tea cup. “I don’t make it to the city very often, I detest the hustle and bustle.”

“I agree. I much prefer the country living to the city.” Lu Han sounded cheerful. Minseok looked over at him to find the man smiling brightly.

“There is something about an ancestral country manor that is comfortable,” Lu Han added.

“Where is your family's home?” Minseok inquired, having never heard of the Lu family before.

“Another thing I enjoy is science,” Lu Han ignored Minseok’s question, changing the topic.

“You like science?” Minseok didn’t often meet anyone that shared his passion. “I enjoy the subject as well.”

“Amazing. I bet we have a lot in common.” Another smile.

“Perhaps,” Minseok went back to staring at his floral-patterned tea cup. “It is unusual to meet another person interested in scientific theory.”

“Indeed, I feel the same. You know, this may sound crazy but I believe time isn’t linear. That there are many places like ours but not, that we aren’t the only versions of ourselves,” Lu Han mused. “It does sound crazy, doesn't it?” he asked sheepishly.

“No, not at all!” Minseok was suddenly extremely interested. He sat up straighter, mind reeling. “That is like something I’ve been theorizing for a few years now.” He had to stop short of revealing why it interested him. If this man could be of help to him the last thing he could risk was driving him away with the knowledge of his family’s curse.

“My dream is to one day build a machine that could act like a portal to time, that could circumvent the nonlinear nature of time and space,” Lu Han said excitedly. “But alas, I fear that the world would reject me for thinking of such a thing, not to mention I doubt I have the talents to complete such a contraption.” Lu Han frowned.

Minseok stared at the man next to him. This man believed the same thing, concluded the same thing Minseok had. The uneasy feeling was now replaced with a surge of hopefulness unlike any Minseok had experienced. He blurted it out before he had time to consider the consequences. “I have made notes on the theory. Would you like to see them?”

“Very much so, “Lu Han answered, looking as excited as Minseok felt.


	16. Comedy of Murder

_Did I go at the science thing too strong?_  Lu Han kept asking himself. 

Blunt, be blunt, the other Lu Han had advised him. Well, whatever Lu Han did now it was already in the script and would apparently pay off, so... 

As he followed Minseok down a long hallway towards a rear-facing room, he couldn't help notice how lethargically the man moved. Like a man who was endlessly tired. Lu Han knew that look. Minseok at this age wouldn't be too different from the one he knew in the future. Minseok was afraid of falling asleep. It was evidenced by the circles under his eyes, the stress lines along his forehead. And yet, he was different. More chill, more open. Lu Han couldn't have imagined a ten year older Minseok offering to show a stranger his notes on the theory of time travel, but soon here Lu Han was, pouring over handwritten observations with Minseok gazing over his shoulder curiously asking Lu Han what he thought. 

"It's... hmm, yes I can see it from the... design you've drawn here... I, it... yeah," Lu Han bluffed his entire way through. He had no idea how this stuff actually worked. He didn't know how Minseok had come to imagine the blueprints and then actually put the damned machine together. He just knew that it worked. Also, that the prototype here was just a bit  _off_  from the one Lu Han had first travelled through. 

"Were all these purple wires here before-- I mean, are they necessary? "Lu Han goofed, staring at the drawings. "I was thinking there ought to be more blue, like this line here." Beside each part Minseok had scribbled line after line of mathematical formulas the likes of which Lu Han knew squat. 

But Minseok stared where Lu Han pointed and nodded. "Hmm, perhaps you're right. See here, this is where the body, or the person, is supposed to sit and once mass is applied and synced to the calculations inserted here... hooked up with this wire here, the blue one, to life-sync the entire body  _to_  the destined location..." 

On and on Minseok talked, Lu Han nodding at all the right times. At least he tried to anyways. But the whole point was lost on him. Minseok was truly a mad genius whose sleep deprivation and wakeless wanderings had inspired, or would inspire, a field of science never before seen in this world. 

"Yeah,  yeah, that's... so cool," he inserted whenever he could get a word in edgewise. Meanwhile, Minseok blathered on. 

"And so yes assuming all those calculations are correct and I have appropriately fielded the body, theoretically it should work. Oh, have you had some tea? Here, it's probably cold. Please, help yourself. And yeah, those assumptions are really important though. I mean, if I get one calculation wrong even by a minuscule, the person in the machine could die or get lost or, I don't know, turn into a rat from sheer stress alone. It would be hideous."

Lu Han spewed his tea all over the table. Luckily he avoided drenching Minseok's notes. The owner of these theories stared dazedly at him for a second and then exhaled long and hard. "I'm probably boring you... I'm sorry. Forgive me. It's just I'm not used to someone who is actually interested in my work. Baekhyun thinks I'm a lunatic already. By the way, how did you say you knew Baekhyun? I really did think I knew most of his friends."

Lu Han gulped. Recovering from his tea accident he repeated quickly, "Our fathers were friends." 

He pounded his chest still coughing. Something on his taste buds was just a bit peculiar.

"Yeah, Baekhyun's father is... quite the recluse I always thought," said Minseok.

Lu Han wouldn't meet his eyes. He didn't know Baekhyun. Well, he didn't know  _this_ Baekhyun. Unfortunately, Minseok's best friend who would eventually become a rat in the future, had overheard Lu Han's confession at the doorway, something Lu Han hadn't anticipated. Baekhyun had stared at him for a long moment. "I am Baekhyun, not Minseok. And yes, I am attractive. I fully admit it." 

Lu Han had balked. "B-Baekhyun?" he squeaked. "But, but you're a rat!? You're alive, wait you're an actual person. Oh my god, you're friends with Minseok and you turned into a rat. Is _that_  how you used to be?"

Tilting his head sideways, Baekhyun had grinned. His smile was wide, cautious, appraising. "Perhaps, but I am not a rat, sir! I can assure you of that." Then he'd lowered his voice. "What's your name?"

"I'm... Lu Han."

"Lu Han, huh? Never heard of you but you apparently know Minseok super well if you know about his family curse. And you're not related otherwise Minseok would know about you and have met you in a different world. I can only assume you're from some other future which means Minseok's device is actually going to work someday. Tell me now, and whether I let you through this door depends on what you say. Why are you here, what do you want, and what makes you his soulmate? Not that I'm going to say he doesn't need one, because honestly,  _man needs a soulmate._  Okay, Lu Ho whatever your name is, you have thirty seconds to persuade me, starting now. Go."

Miraculously, Lu Han had persuaded him. Which brought about the next set of curious events.

Which brought him back to that weird gut feeling in his stomach that something was  _off_.

Which brought Lu Han to seek out a chair to sit on when his knees began growing wobbly. 

His head swam, his vision faded and brightened and faded again. 

"What's... happening... you... drugged me..."

Minseok bent over him. Lu Han felt him prodding his eyelid, felt the distinct tug of his lid and the snap when Minseok let it go. Now on top of his stomach, even his eyeball hurt.

"Not to worry, it won't kill you."

Lu Han snorted. "Well, wouldn't... be... the first... time." His head came into abrupt contact with the wall behind him. "Ow."

Minseok frowned. "What do you mean, wouldn't be the first time?"

He could barely get his tongue to work. Even still, he couldn't helped be impressed by this comedy.  "Minseok, you killed me once already... in the future. How come... you're... so damn... suspicious... any-anyways? I just came... to... help... you..."

Then he passed out.

 

 

 

Was it hours later when he finally came to? Lu Han groaned. His throat scratched, his head reeled. His vision still blurred. He was in a darkened room laying on a sofa. He recognized the table in front of him as the one where he'd looked over Minseok's notes. Apparently he wasn't dead, that was good news. Also, Minseok hadn't gone very far. He heard voices from the other room, Baekhyun it sounded like, arguing with Minseok.

"You drugged him?!" said the man-rat.

"Yeah?" Minseok scoffed defensively. "What was I supposed to do? You let a stranger into my house who started spewing nonsense about blue and purple wires. I got scared! I needed things to slow down!"

"But you actually drugged him."

"Calm down, he's not dead. He's in the other room. He thinks I killed him."

Baekhyun said, "What?"

"In the future, I don't know. Apparently I killed him and now he's back."

"Hah. Wow. You actually are a psychopath, Minseok, I always knew it. He said he was your soulmate or something, by the way, not to be nosy--"

Minseok went on like he didn't hear him. "He's from the future, Baekhyun. Do you know what this means?!"

"It means you're a murderous psychopath in the future too."

"It means my theory is correct! It means I'll build that machine! It means I'll... wait, did you say he was my  _soulmate?!"_

From there on Lu Han couldn't hear them. Their conversation had dwindled down into a whisper. In the meantime he tried to move. He got as far as realizing that his legs were tied together and nothing else. Except it didn't sink in until he'd tried to stand and fell to the ground, landing with a bang and crumpling into a heap of whimpers. 

The commotion brought the two other men running. Someone flipped a gaslamp. Soon Lu Han was staring at two sets of shoes. 

"Uhm, Lu Han, sir?" It was Baekhyun asking.

Lu Han sighed. There was nothing else to do. "Yeah? I'm here." 

The man bent down to peer at Lu Han closer to his level. "Yeah, how are you, buddy? Sorry for leaving you with my crazy friend. I didn't know he'd try to actually kill you."

"Once again," Minseok protested hotly, "I didn't  _try to kill him!"_  

"Yet," Lu Han provided. 

Minseok groaned. "Okay, fine, we'll play it your way. Baekhyun, get him back on his feet. Then we can talk, will  _that_  make both of you happy?"

Baekhyun smiled. "Gladly! Oh, and just to break the ice, Minseok, because I haven't told you yet. Lu Han thinks you're hot. There, now we've no more secrets between us. Oh but wait, how do I even become a rat again? I'm confused about that part. Somebody? Anyone? Wait, no one wants to explain?" 

 


	17. What a Familiar Stranger

“So…” Minseok drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “In the future I hire _you_ to go into the machine and kill _someone_ to end the curse. That someone is _me_ , according to Junmyeon, but in reality it isn’t _me_ he just wanted me to kill _you_ , which I did.”

“Yes, exactly.” Lu Han nodded enthusiastically.

“Baekhyun is a rat because of the machine, at some point I forget I ever met you and there is another you running around from some future you are not aware of who told you Junmyeon was lying. Am I missing anything?”

“Seriously though, why are we not focusing on me turning into a rat? Am I the only one alarmed by this?!” Baekhyun rambled.

Lu Han and Minseok ignored him. “I met your grandfather, like I said, and another woman. Junmyeon’s mother…I think. She knew I broke the curse. Eventually at least. At some point.”

“A rat. How does a human turn into a rat?!” Baekhyun continued to rant, once again he was ignored.

Minseok tented his fingers, thinking. Ah, yes, there was the soulmate thing. “So if future you said we were soulmates, then does that mean there is a scientific angle to souls?”

“I have no idea. Minseok, I don’t understand any of this I only know what I saw with my own eyes and what I was told by…well, me. “

Minseok tilted his head to the side, observing Lu Han. Baekhyun was saying something but it wasn’t important. No, what was important was to discern if this man was telling the truth. He had already lied to him once, professing a love of science. How could he trust him now? “If I murdered you I dare say I had good reason.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Lu Han threw his hands up. “I told you that your uncle tricked you!”

“I doubt I would have fallen for Junmyeon’s trickery so easily,” Minseok said dryly.

“Are you not disturbed you murdered someone?!” Baekhyun shouted, finally getting their attention.

Minseok pondered the question. Of course he didn’t want to think of himself as a murderer but he was nothing but practical. “I suppose it is mildly disturbing.”

Baekhyun leapt up from the settee. “Mildly?! _Mildly disturbing_? You are really are a psychopath, Kim Minseok.” He turned to Lu Han. “And if you’re his soulmate you can’t be much better!”

Minseok and Lu Han glared at Baekhyun in turn. The man rolled his eyes and sighed before flopping back down on the couch. “I give up.”

“You aren’t going to drug me again, right?” Lu Han asked, moving on from Baekhyun’s outburst.

Minseok shrugged. “Probably not but I can’t be certain. It depends on what you do.”

Lu Han pinched the bridge of his nose. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“I can’t believe I built the machine and it worked,” Minseok said softly, digesting the news, turning the conversation away from murder. He was thrilled to learn that his theories were correct. He could do it. He wasn’t insane...well, at least where the device was concerned.

“I want to help you build it, even if you do end up murdering me.” Lu Han announced, his tone firm and unwavering. “Murdering me in the future, that is. Since you know, we can maybe get over that with the machine.”

“I don’t trust you,” Minseok instinctively blurted out.

“I don’t trust either of you,” Baekhyun muttered.

Lu Han focused on Minseok. “You have to trust me or we’re both doomed. Think about it. You probably can’t build the machine if I don’t help. You would never know your theories are correct unless I was here. You...”

“I would have discovered they were correct at some point,” Minseok argued.

Lu Han closed his eyes and grimaced. When he opened them again he was sporting a very fake looking smile. “Let me stay. I’ll try not to be in your way and I’ll help where I can.”

Minseok considered the offer. It would be free labor and Baekhyun wasn’t much help. Sure he was good for a laugh but if anything he was a major distraction. Plus if he had hired Lu Han in the future he must have thought the man had great potential.

“If I disturb you out you can drug me again as long as you don’t kill me,” Lu Han offered.

“Deal.” Minseok felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He could do this…assuming he wasn’t arrested for continually drugging the man next to him first.

 

 

 

They fell into a routine, Lu Han dropping by first thing in the morning, helping Minseok with whatever he needed. Sometimes it was the work of a servant – fetching coffee or tea or tidying up Minseok’s study. Other times Lu Han listened as Minseok rambled, furiously expounding on his ideas while trying desperately to stay awake.

A week passed like this, with Baekhyun wandering in and out of the house with a joke or a funny anecdote before he grew bored and went in search of excitement elsewhere. Lu Han staying as long as he could before he dragged himself back home. Minseok shunning sleep and chasing down what he needed during the day with Lu Han and meticulously detailing his findings at night.

It couldn’t be called peaceful, nothing about Minseok’s life truly earned that title. But it was relatively calm which could only mean something would soon happen to shatter the stillness, the ease of his life.

The storm arrived one morning in the form of a furious knock on the front door. Minseok was busying himself in his study, Lu Han sitting across the room and sipping his tea, listening as Minseok randomly read from his notes.

The two men looked at each other when the banging started, both alarmed by the violent nature of the noise.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Lu Han inquired, setting his teacup down on the small side table.

Minseok shook his head. Loud banging on the door at this time of day did not bode well. He debated if he should ignore the pounding but Lu Han was already on his feet, ready to answer it.

“I’ll get it,” Minseok said gruffly, having a mind to peek out the front window and see who it was before he decided to answer it. He was ten feet from the entrance hall when the door opened of its own accord, or so it seemed.

“I’ve no idea what you are on about, old boy!” It was Baekhyun.

Minseok hurried to the door, Lu Han right behind him. He found Baekhyun standing across from an angry looking gentleman that Minseok had never seen before.

“I know he is in here! Lu Han, Lu Han!” the man shouted, looking towards Minseok.

“May I help you, sir?” Minseok drawled, making every effort to stay calm and not eject the man then and there.

The man looked at him with fire in his eyes. He was young, with pronounced dimples and dark eyes. “My name is Zhang Yixing and I am an investor in Lu Han’s great arctic expedition. I don’t know what charlatans you keep regular company with sir, but Lu Han accepted my money and never went on this so-called expedition.” Yixing gritted his teeth. “I have reason to believe he is in your home and I wish to confront him.”

“Is that so?” Minseok turned to look at Lu Han, who stood unnaturally still in the middle of the sitting room. “You say he never went on the expedition?”

“He has been spotted around town frequently, sir. Even this very day he was seen coming to this home! He reported that he left town a few weeks back but it was clearly a lie,” Yixing shouted.

Lu Han looked pale, almost like he had seen a ghost.

“Y-yixing?” Lu Han finally spoke, walking into the entrance hall in a daze.

“You thief!” Yixing yelled at the appearance of the man. He jabbed his finger in Lu Han’s face and continued to rant about his thievery and dishonest operations. Lu Han took a step back but didn’t try to avoid the accusations.

After a good minute had passed of the man’s accusations Lu Han finally spoke. “Yixing, is this how you met Minseok?” Lu Han turned to Minseok, still pale but less dazed. His voice was animated, like the pieces were falling into place. “Yixing is your servant, have you not met him before?”

“I have never seen this man in my life,” Minseok answered honestly, more than a little intrigued.

“Servant?!” Yixing guffawed. “I am a respectable gentleman sir, I am most definitely not a servant. Fanciful words for a man who owes me a thousand pounds!”

“I swear this is the most exciting visit to town I’ve had in ages,” Baekhyun remarked, watching the entire scene play out with a smile on his face.

 


	18. Make the First Move

Lightbulbs went off in Lu Han's head, the longer he stood there in shock. Yixing... Yixing had been one of his original investors for Antarctica? There had been several, if Lu Han recalled correctly, and he'd never bothered learning who they were as long as the money came in. Also, how stupid could he have been to be treking across town from his home to Minseok's while  _ten years ago_ , which was technically  _now_ , Lu Han was making his way to the bottom of the planet. He cringed and turned around in the hall. Yixing, Yixing of course! This was probably how Yixing had known in his future how to get ahold of Lu Han for Minseok's "experiment". 

The problem now remained, Yixing right at this moment didn't have a clue about anything. Neither did Minseok. Neither did Baekhyun, probably. Only Lu Han understood, partially, and still his head was beginning to explode. Couldn't he just zap himself back to the future already? Damnit, he and Minseok hadn't even  _begun_  building the blasted machine. This might take months!

Meanwhile, Minseok stood there looking more and more amused. Yixing, more and more enraged. 

Steeling himself, Lu Han planted his arms on his hips and turned back around. "Okay, I can explain. Maybe!" he cautioned.

Yixing, now inside the townhome, was not appeased. "The only thing, sir, that you need to explain is why you aren't in Antarctica!"

Lu Han sighed. "But I am! I am there right now! Or, almost... Another week and I'll most likely be in sight of the Antarctic Peninsula, and... wow was it cold, I am so glad to be here right now, you have no idea."

He stopped, realizing he probably sounded like a lunatic. Minseok's eyebrows were raised.

"You're in... Antarctica right now? I thought you came from the future."

Lu Han huffed, now totally exasperated. "You know, it's you and your damned time machine that even made this possible, so  _yes, Minseok_ , I am currently in three locations RIGHT NOW that I can remember somewhere across time and space. Ten years ago today I was an adventurer. Ten years after that I met you in your future, and you plopped me into that stupid device and look where I am now. Number one, I am dead; number two, I am alive; number three... which maybe should have been number one... I am an adventurer. But most importantly, Minseok, I'm really really mad you've made my life (or death) this complicated, when all I wanted to do was meet a wealthy dude, get married, and have nice big parties in town where the flock of society gathered. Ugh!"

He turned and stormed down the hall. Nobody replied except Baekhyun, who mentioned something about liking parties, especially if he wasn't a rat. 

Minseok's workroom was still a work in progress. The notes he and Minseok had drawn over the past week sat scattered about the table. Lu Han glared at them. Minseok's were infinitely better than his, which were just crude drawing of what he remembered the machine looking like. Help Minseok build a time machine? What was Lu Han thinking? He was certainly a fool. He wondered, if he died right here, would that cause a time flux? Would his future selves disappear? Did he even trust his own future self who had promised him that everything somehow would happen the way it was meant to happen?

Lu Han groaned. Outside the room he heard Minseok beginning to argue with Yixing. That gentleman, who would later become Minseok's servant - _imagine that!_ \- was now asking pointed questions about this 'time machine' Lu Han had spoken of. Minseok vehemently denied it. Baekhyun contradicted him. Lu Han snorted, glad to have left when he did. 

He let them duke it out, and he tuned out the noise, dozing in his chair in a way Minseok avoided like the plague, Half an hour later, his eyes snapped open to the sound of the door. 

Minseok entered quietly. Lu Han could almost believe by his posture that he was apologetic. Until the man opened his mouth and said, "Well you just lit another fire, didn't you? Talking about a time machine _I don't have_ in front of a man who turns greedy with just a hint of something newfangled."

Lu Han answered without pause. "You don't have a time machine yet, but you will have one soon, and I want the first ride out of here, thank you very much." He swallowed, not bothering to mention that apparently Minseok is going to like Yixing well enough in the future to make him his most trusted servant. Then again, Minseok doesn't remember Lu Han in the future. Maybe he won't remember Yixing either? Come to think of it, wasn't Yixing the one who brought the two of them together ten years from now, dropping Lu Han's name through a magazine periodical about... of all things, Lu Han's Antarctic excursion? 

He's probably a fake, Lu Han realizes. Yixing, what a damn fake, masquerading as a servant just to see Minseok build a time machine. Not his problem though. Lu Han just wants to go home. He can deal with Yixing then if he must. Probably he'll just turn tail and run. Screw his promise to Minseok to help him end this curse. Screw his dreams about getting to marry said man as a reward. Minseok had killed him, just like that, promises be damned. 

He forgot for a moment that the Minseok in front of him was ten years younger and not yet a murderer. 

"So, Lu Han?" 

He hummed, dragging himself back into the present. "What do you want?" 

Minseok pulled a chair over; he sat down in front of Lu Han. He looked awful, eyes his usual bloodshot color, skin sallow from unease, whole body dragging from lack of sleep. 

"When's the last time you slept?" Lu Han asked.

Minseok shrugged. "I napped yesterday. Woke up about a hundred years ago somewhere on the American continent. It was kind of nice there actually, very rustic, lots of trees around a gorgeous lake. Then I ran into..." he paused. "I'm sorry, ignore my words. This sounds so crazy to you, I know."

"You don't have to stop though," said Lu Han, sitting up a little and rubbing his head. "I'm... used to it, I guess. You told me lots of things already, the future you. And I've been places with you before."

Minseok crossed his ankle up above his knee and folded his arms across his chest. "Really? You mean, Joseon?"

Lu Han murmured. Minseok was frowning. When Lu Han had told that story a week ago Minseok had expressed some serious disbelief, not at the tale itself but at Lu Han's insistence that Jongdae had begged to come back, and that he hadn't, but Jummyeon had.

_"The ancestors never come back. They can't, it's impossible."_

_"Yeah," Lu Han had replied. "You thought that, but then it happened."_

He could tell Minseok still retained his doubts. Neither pressed the issue today though. Perhaps Minseok was too preoccupied with his problems. If he didn't mend the family curse, there was high probability he would turn into one of those ancestors, traveling every time he slept, drifting farther and farther from the tree, until all that remained in the here and now was a wisp.

Lu Han had a sudden question. "Your family, all your ancestors, everybody. Do they  _die_  here, like normal? I mean, where are they buried?" He had a hunch he already knew the answer.

Minseok scowled and didn't meet his eyes. "They die, I suppose. But they're not here. There are no bodies. They just disappear. Everyone's disappeared..."

He should be sadder about this, Lu Han observed with wonder. Minseok was the last of his family. He had probably seen the previous generation stretch and fade into all those worlds, until they were just gone. He had lived with this for years, alone. Perhaps the grief had already relieved itself with so many years past. 

"What about your mother?" Lu Han remembered she was only the spouse, not a member of the Kim family lineage who fell pray to the curse. 

At this, Minseok's eyes narrowed harder. There, was that the hint of grief Lu Han had been looking for? He waited. 

Finally Minseok spoke. "She's alive, you know."

"Really?" 

He nodded. "She's gone mad now. She lives in an asylum in the country. I visit a few times a year, when I can get there."

Lu Han didn't dare interrupt him now. He hadn't known... 

Minseok continued. "She never believed in the curse. My dad told her before they were married. Said it happened to all of them eventually. His grandfather, his uncles,  _his father_  and one of his sisters had already gone by the time my parents married. He was old by then. Almost forty, and he'd spent most of his life trying to find the cause. He didn't fear sleep because he thought he could find the answers there. She didn't believe him though. Perhaps she thought he was a little bit nutty, a little fanciful. They married and they had me. Twelve years later she watched him fade away one night in his sleep, and thought she was hallucinating. In the morning he was gone. Then she really started hallucinating."

Lu Han couldn't imagine it. But Minseok told the story as if it barely mattered. No wonder the man was so cold, so uninviting. At twelve years he'd become in effect, an orphan. And for decades after that he'd lived a cursed life.

Minseok suddenly looked at Lu Han. "This is why I've been ruminating on what you said in hall. You said you were going to get married in the future? Was it to me? Why would I agree to such a thing?" 

Lu Han choked on his own spit. He looked sheepishly away and contemplated lying. But then the other Lu Han had said 'honesty'. 

"Uhm, yeah, you did. But only if I solved your problem first." 

"Which required murdering someone, and I didn't say who."

"I don't think you knew, but yeah that's what you said."

"And instead I killed you."

Lu Han snorted. "Yeah, that's what happened... You'll forgive me if I don't ask you to marry me again. I'm a little warier this time around."

Minseok nodded like he agreed with this statement. "Sounds like you're learning."

They laughed, and Lu Han said, "You're damned right, I'm learning. Kim Minseok you're a suspicious, psychopathic bastard. Shame you're so good looking. I was actually looking forward to wooing you again."

He caught himself right as Minseok's eyes narrowed. The other man sat up and leaned forward. "What... was that? You came here to woo me?"

Lu Han cringed, panicking now in full because, wow he hadn't meant to say that. Then again, 'honesty'. 

"Yup... I kind of did." 

He waited, and his heart pounded in his chest. Was this where Minseok decided he'd had enough? Would he kill him again this time? Was honesty really  _not_  the way to go?

Except Minseok, in slow motion, peeled his cheeks back and the beginnings of a knowing smile appeared on his lips. "Well then, it's been a week and you've made no move. I'm still here, aren't I?"

 


	19. Perhaps a Different Grandfather...

Minseok could see the panic set in, Lu Han’s eyes darting around the room like he was looking for an escape. It was infinitely amusing to see the man like this, suddenly bashful and unsure when a half an hour before he had been ranting, all but shouting about Minseok ruining his life. Gone was the confidence, in its place settled a dusting of pink on Lu Han’s cheeks.

Minseok leaned forward in his chair, delighting in the way Lu Han squirmed in his seat – like he could get away when they were seated across from each other, only inches separating the pair. “I’m here. I’m listening. Woo away,” he drawled, stifling laughter when Lu Han opened his mouth to speak then shut it again.

After a few awkward seconds of silence Minseok made a move, having too much fun to stop now. He stood up and forward, resting his hands on each side of Lu Han, caging him into the chair with his arms. Their faces were only inches apart, Lu Han pressing back to create more space and Minseok chasing him to bridge the gap. “Do you want to kiss me, Lu Han?”

He heard Lu Han swallow. He could sense his uneven breath. It was fun to toy with Lu Han like this. How long had it been since he had kissed anyone? Or cared to kiss anyone? And did he really care now…he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that this was too amusing a situation to pass up.

Lu Han was nervous but he hadn’t entirely discarded the bizarre confidence that Minseok knew him for. He took a deep breath and then pressed forward, hands grabbing for Minseok’s forearms as he angled up to press their lips together.

It was soft, chaste...interesting. Minseok kissed back, pressing harder. Lu Han was the one who parted his lips first but Minseok was soon to follow, losing himself in the kiss. His tongue slid into Lu Han’s mouth, caressing teeth as their breathing mingled. He hadn’t expected Lu Han to kiss like this – gentle, still a little hesitant. It was a heady feeling, coupled with his lack of sleep it was slightly disorienting.

When they broke apart a blanket of awkwardness set in. Minseok retreated back to his seat, smirking at Lu Han, who looked equal parts mortified and afraid.

“You’re off to a good start, dare I admit,” Minseok chuckled. “Wooing, I mean.”

Lu Han cleared his throat. “Yes. Very good then.”

Minseok scooted his chair back and stood, unable to hide his smile. “We should get back to work.”

Lu Han nodded, his cheeks still red.

 

 

 

 

The candles burned low, casting a dim light in the study. Minseok sat at his desk, checking his calculations for the umpteenth time. A soft snoring could be heard behind him – Lu Han passed out in the corner chair. He had claimed he wasn’t tired, that he would stay to help (and by help he meant be the sounding board for Minseok’s rambles). It wasn’t long before he fell asleep and Minseok didn’t care to wake him.

It was an oddity, this man who came from a place in which Minseok had achieved much more than he ever could have hoped. This man who was suspicious yet honest…or so Minseok hoped. He had kissed him, dare he be a consummate liar who would cause his downfall? Minseok shuddered to think of it.

He lost himself in his thoughts, pen hovering over the page as he stared into the void and debated what he had done hours before. Was this what made him a so-called psychopath? He looked over his shoulder, towards the sleeping time traveler. He looked utterly at peace in his sleep, something Minseok could never hope for.

Images of his mother flashed before him. Hope. Disbelief. Insanity. A shiver racked his body. No, he decided, it was never going to be the same way for him. And this man who claimed he would woo him, claimed many things…he was different than his mother, no? He knew about the curse, believed in it unlike the mother Minseok watched fall into madness when the truth became too much. Minseok stared at Lu Han for how long he did not know, a realization setting in.

 

 

 

Morning light broke over the nearly deserted streets, the fog still heavy, obscuring the carriages that periodically rambled over the cobblestone. Minseok hugged his cloak tightly around him, forever weary of the chill that permeated the city at that time of year.

It was relatively quiet at that time of day – the shops were not open for business, the members of society were only now collapsing into their beds after another night of see and be seen. Servants busied themselves, up long before the masters of their households, readying their places of employ while the family’s slept. Minseok nodded to a few of the servants who made eye contact as they darted past, eschewing the social order of the day.

He walked for a little under an hour in the breaking dawn, only slowing his steps when he spotted the twisted iron fencing of the kirkyard. His boots pressed into the dew drenched overgrowth of the small cemetery, a maze of weeds and vines that would disorient a person if one did not have a destination in mind upon entering the place.

Minseok found the grave easily. He had memorized the number of steps from the gate to the weather worn tombstone.

_Kim Jongin_

_1694-1741_

He brushed away the foliage that covered the tombstone, tracing the name with his index finger. He sat back on his haunches, reading and rereading the name.

It had occurred to him a few years back that this may be the start of it all but he had no proof. A great-grandfather…a likely candidate. A man he hadn’t met in any of his travels. A man who lay beside an unmarked grave, both surrounded in wrought iron fencing like the world was trying to keep them contained, keep them out, and keep them at bay.

“I met an interesting man,” Minseok whispered. “Dare he give me hope?”

The birds began to stir, the city waking up, noise drifting into the desolate cemetery.

“I kill him, or so he says.” Minseok wondered what could be under his feet. Nothing, probably nothing. An empty grave, a symbolic gesture like all of his ancestor’s graves. “Do I trust him?”

There would never be an answer no matter how long he waited. After a few minutes Minseok stood, pulling his cloak around him he left without a backward glance. It was a fruitless effort like always.

 

“Am I at least well fed as a rat?” Baekhyun asked, voice raising a pitch as he energetically questioned his supposed future existence.

“I think so...I guess I’m not sure,” Lu Han admitted.

Minseok entered the drawing room to find Baekhyun had arrived and Lu Han had woken up.

“Where were you?” Baekhyun asked, raising an eyebrow at his friend’s early morning outing.

“The cemetery,” Minseok admitted freely, smirking when Lu Han’s face went pale.

“W-were you…” Lu Han trailed off.

Minseok knew what he was thinking. “I was not digging up bodies for experimentation. I leave that to people like Baekhyun.”

“I would never!” Baekhyun protested, launching into a tirade about his respectability.

Minseok took a seat on the settee next to Lu Han, the adventurer giving him a smile at Baekhyun’s antics. Minseok returned the smile, feeling his chest tighten, an odd feeling overcoming him at the near secretive gesture.


	20. New Investor, New Interest

Not even two weeks later, Lu Han walked into Minseok's workroom to find a shocking surprise. Instead of notebooks and drawings and stacks of crumbled paper trash littering the floor, there were parts... Metal objects and unattached wires and, the crudest replica of a chair. It was Minseok's time contraption moved off the page, now finally a work in progress. 

Lu Han's jaw dropped, his pulse skyrocketed. He stepped toward the table which had been moved aside to make room for the actual device. His eyes scanned the work notes, inexpertly comparing the figures to the skeleton machine on the floor.  Could it be... that after all these weeks, he was one step closer to going home?

Before he knew it, a body had stepped up behind him. 

"See something interesting?"

Lu Han froze. Two arms which were not his suddenly caged him to the table. Minseok's breath wafted hot against the back of his neck. The man leaned subtly against his body. Lu Han's eyes rolled almost entirely to the back of his head. He barely stopped himself from shuddering. Minseok had been like this recently, teasing, all the time. He knew better now than to react to it. Always, within seconds, Minseok would back away with that smirk Lu Han was now quite familiar with, and become all business-like. 

It happened now, just as anticipated. 

"Progress," said Lu Han, never taking his eyes from the machine. But before Minseok backed away, Lu Han took the occasion to crowd into his space. He leant forward over the table, thrusting his bum out. It connected with Minseok's hips. Seconds later, the other man had moved away, face impassive, as if nothing had happened. Lu Han noticed, however, that he was quiet for just a mite longer than usual. Where Minseok had game, Lu Han had a play to counter it. 

Minseok stood over the machine, pondering it. "I figured I should start building the damned thing, if I'm ever going to get my townhome alone again. All this company, night and day, it's wreaking havoc on my not-sleep schedule." 

Lu Han smiled. "That anxious to be rid of me, hm?" 

Minseok didn't answer. 

Lu Han continued. "You know, you should consider moving back to the country. Your estate there is... lovely, and... serene." 

Minseok made a face. "You mean, cold, empty, and grim?"

"Exactly." Lu Han laughed.

"I hate it there." And Lu Han stopped laughing. 

"It's been the seat of my family for over four hundred years. No one was happy there, as far as I can tell. Even before the curse began."

"Do you know when it started? Do you mind me asking?" said Lu Han tentatively. 

Minseok sighed. "I do mind, actually. Although there isn't much you don't already know. Why don't you wait a bit and I'll tell this when everyone is here."

Lu Han frowned. "Everyone? You mean... me and Baekhyun?" Who on earth did Minseok have left to tell in his crazy small circle of acquaintances?

"Yes. I am, having a guest this afternoon. Now that there's been some progress on the machine, I think it's time to invite him into the project."

 

 

 

At two o'clock sharp the doorbell rang, and for once it was not a surprise to the occupants of the house. 

"Mr. Zhang, good afternoon. So good to see you again. My what a nice butt, I'm sorry, ignore that last bit. Would you please come in? My friends are waiting right through there."

If anyone cringed at Baekhyun's shameless introduction, they kept it to themselves, including Zhang Yixing who, impeccably dressed as always, marched swiftly into the sitting room where Minseok and Lu Han were already assembled. 

When Minseok told Lu Han he'd invited the man, Lu Han was shocked. Minseok, the ever suspicious one? Letting in an investor when mere weeks ago he'd been content to deny everything?  _"I have a plan,"_ he'd said.  _"And it involves the two of you so shut up and wash your face. In Yixing's eyes you're still part of this investment."_

"Just so everyone's aware," said Minseok without further pleasantries, "Mr. Zhang is now in possession of a set of letters addressed to him by Mr. Lu Han upon reaching the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Lu Han," he handed him a pen and paper, "would you please write a short manifesto containing some words of nonsense and prove to Mr. Zhang that you are indeed in two places at once." 

Confused but obedient, Lu Han did so. As he passed the slip of paper, Yixing pulled out a bundle of letters from his inside breast pocket. Lu Han recognized them as letters he had indeed sent ten years ago. 

"Hmm, interesting," said Yixing, comparing the two specimens. "Though I am still not entirely convinced."

"Then allow me to explain how this all might have happened."

And so Minseok began a short explanatory history of his family and their curse. Most of it Lu Han knew already, though there were a few details he was glad to hear more of. For instance, the nature of their 'illness' which caused them to wander in their dreams, how at first it manifested as either incurable insomnia or was misdiagnosed by curious doctors as narcolepsy, depending on how the bearer of the curse reacted. In Minseok's case, he refused to sleep. It seemed he wasn't alone among his ancestors in this, his father being the one notable exception. 

"I believe the one point of origin may have been my great grandfather, Kim Jongin," said Minseok at one point. 

"You think he is the one who cursed your family?" Yixing asked. He listened thoughtfully throughout, but with an air of polite suspicion. 

"I couldn't say. I only know that among family records Jongin was even more of a recluse than myself. He has never been seen by me or any of my family  _in_  the dream-wanderings, not even  _heard of_ , which is an anomaly. I have some strange family members but they tend to leave gaping trails in which to follow as they tear through history." 

Like Kim Junmyeon, Lu Han thought. 

What Minseok did know, however, was that every one in the family following Jongin suffered the curse and disappeared from it. Jongdae, who was Jongin's son and Minseok's grandfather; Mae Chang who was Jongin's daughter.

"Then there was another daughter, and two other sons only one whom lived long enough to die of it. The youngest killed himself when he realized what would happen to him. It didn't work though; he's still around out there, somewhere. 

"Then there was my father, Kim Junsu. I have two aunts, Hyemi and Hyoyeon. Neither of them had children, fortunately. In that same generation, however, comes Junmyeon. He's Mae Chang's son. She has several more children. And of the great-aunt and -uncles, there are a few more.  It's a busy world, actually, when one thinks about it. A true family of immortals." His laugh was more of a scoff.

He turned to the grimmer facts then. That every time they dreamed an echo remained. For a time, the initial echo carried on with full a memory and life force. After a time though it began to fade and the figures carried on like waifs, mere shells of their former selves. If a living dreamer revisited it, it would imbue the echo with another resurgence of energy, only to be left to rot again, their bodies aging in every dimension. 

"If you visit the family plot here, there isn't a single body. No Kim who disappeared here was actually buried here. I've always wondered about that though. Do the other versions also die and decay? Or do they too just fizzle out of existence?" 

Yixing took in these facts with a neutral expression. "Tell me then, do you remember all these lives? Now, I mean? After you've returned."

Minseok looked at him. "Yes, and no. Only the most recent ones, some I forget entirely."

Lu Han nodded thoughtfully. "You mean, you're holding so many lives and memories that it's impossible to remember them all explicitly?"

"Precisely. Anyways that leads us to the machine I have been developing. I'll show it to you presently, Mr. Zhang, but it occurred to me at some point, after my father failed to discover the origin of our curse in the dreamworld, that the problem with the Kims is that we're so susceptible to dreaming we haven't the energy to do anything else. We've been missing something. Hence I devoted myself for years to the building of a device which would allow another to dream walk with me. If, as Lu Han claims, I become successful, it allows the passenger to... in a sense, connect with my dream worlds and travel it with me."

Baekhyun, who had been unusually silent, clapped his hands at this. "Ah, I see! So you chose Lu Han to travel with you. How romantic, Minseok really."

Both Minseok and Lu Han glared at him. Yixing, however, was taking this in quite seriously. At Minseok's bidding, Lu Han filled him in about the rest of his own 'adventures' in the machine. Lu Han rather dared think it would be important in the future, when Yixing was no doubt playing the instigator. They showed him the budding machine as well.

Hours later it seemed, they showed him the door. Baekhyun left not long after that. It was late, the sun almost setting. Lu Han yawned and thought regretfully about the walk back home; he had learned to be more discreet these days, lest someone else believe he wasn't in Antarctica. If Yixing barely believed it (and Lu Han had reason to believe Minseok had paid him off), then no one would. 

He looked at Minseok, who wavered on his feet, eyes narrow but not yet closed. 

"When was the last time you had sleep?" Lu Han asked. 

Minseok grunted, for Lu Han had taken to asking the question daily. 

"Go home or go to sleep yourself," Minseok replied. "At least one of us needs to be sane if you're going to help me build this stupid machine."

Lu Han smiled at that. "I'll do whatever I can, Minseok, you know that."

The man huffed. "You really are anxious to leave here, aren't you?" 

Lu Han inclined his head. "Am I?" Sometimes he doubted it. The only future-Minseok he knew of had just had him murdered. On the other hand, this Minseok was... nicer, softer... Lu Han was more than a little bit fond.

"You haven't explained though."

"Explained what?"

"Why you've been letting me stick around. Why you persuaded Yixing not to arrest me. Why you invited him here to become an investor to your project when we all know you don't  _need_  either one of us."

Minseok's betrayed no expression other than  _tired._ "Maybe I dreamed something important." 

Lu Han frowned. "Did you really?"

Minseok smirked. "You scoff, but how would you know."

Lu Han turned away, disappointed because this was the time when Minseok would go all vague on him and never actually explain a thing. "I'll be going now, thanks anyways." 

A hand on his shoulder stopped him. 

"Wait a second," said Minseok sleepily.

Lu Han groaned, now thoroughly annoyed. "What?" 

He expected something else, another vague mystic response. Instead what he got was his back shoved lightly against the wall and a hard kiss on the mouth. He gasped and his lips opened up. Minseok, kissing him? Well it wasn't the most unpleasant thing that could have happened. Lu Han closed his eyes and surrendered himself to the Minseok's exploration. One hand appeared on his waist, another on his ribcage. Lu Han moaned, and his hands fluttered, flapping uselessly in the air until he found himself tentatively groping Minseok's waist in return. He shuddered, now kissing back, their mouths warm as Minseok slotted his head and pressed inside.

It was over in less than a minute. Abruptly, Minseok pulled away. Then he smirked.

"Just checking," he said cryptically.

Lu Han sighed. His body was still tingling but he took the bait anyways. "Checking on what."

"To see if it felt the same," said Minseok.

"Uhh, the same as what?" asked Lu Han. He ran his hands along his shirt coat, smoothing the wrinkles there.

Minseok opened the front door, silently bidding Lu Han to leave. He smiled, and Lu Han knew before hearing the answer that he probably shouldn't have asked.

"The same as in my dream, of course. Goodnight, Lu Han. See you in the morning." 


	21. Blast from the Past

Minseok burst into laughter the moment he was certain Lu Han was gone, out of earshot and certainly left with more than a little to think about. He truly was having too much fun playing with the poor sod, though dare he admit it his enjoyment was not entirely of the mocking sort.

Of course he felt something when he kissed Lu Han, something more than the sheer enjoyment of seeing the adventurer squirm. Kissing Lu Han was nice, something he could get used to it he wasn’t the man he was, living with the problem he had. For now he was a welcome diversion that proved useful, a man who seemed worthy of his trust at least on a base level.

Minseok plodded back to his study, stifling a yawn while he walked. He returned to tinkering with the parts that he had carefully created. Every now and then he smiled, remembering Lu Han’s reaction to their last liplock.

It turned out he wasn’t the only one whose mind kept wandering. It had been more than an hour since Lu Han had left when he was once again at Minseok’s door, wearing a bothered expression.

Minseok let him inside, walking back to his study, knowing Lu Han would follow him. “Is there something wrong?” he asked, curious why Lu Han appeared so bothered.

“Yes, there is,” Lu Han answered firmly. Minseok didn’t pry, figuring the adventurer would tell him in good time.

Minseok walked over the pile of parts he had been working on. He had been fitting one of the wire harnesses over the rudimentary chair he had attached to the guts of the machine. He picked up the longest wire, carefully angling it per his calculations.

“You said you had a dream, what happened in it?” Lu Han finally asked.

“Dream? I have a lot of dreams,” Minseok teased, smirking because he knew that Lu Han had been thinking of what he said since he had left the house.

Lu Han cleared his throat. “You know, the one about...the one that made you kiss me like that.”

“Oh! That one.” Minseok picked up another wire and fitted it into the machine. “It was a rather interesting time.”

When Minseok didn’t elaborate Lu Han began rambling. “Was I in it? If I was doesn’t that mean that it was another me, since your dreams aren’t truly dreams at all.”

In reality Minseok hadn’t experienced anything with Lu Han in the non-waking world. He had only used the excuse to tease him further, hoping it would make him curious. And his plan had worked to great effect.   
“Yes, it must have been another you,” Minseok went along with his lie. “He was a far better kisser so it certainly couldn’t have been you.”

Minseok glanced at Lu Han. He could make out the flush of the man’s cheeks even in the low lighting. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction.

“You didn't seem disappointed before I left.” Lu Han frowned.

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Minseok explained, turning back to the machine.

He heard Lu Han approaching but didn’t make a move. He let the man grip his shoulder and turn him around. He didn’t use too much force, it wasn’t an angry gesture but one of a man who had resolved to clear up any misunderstanding as soon as possible.

Lu Han smashed their lips together. Minseok wanted to laugh at his eagerness to convince Minseok of his abilities but he found that laughter was impossible with Lu Han prying his lips open with his tongue. Minseok gave up, easing into the kiss and letting out a throaty moan as Lu Han’s tongue invaded his mouth.

Minseok gripped at Lu Han’s waist, his hands fisting into the adventurer’s jacket. If Lu Han wanted to convince him, he would let him. He wasn’t going to take the lead this time.

Lu Han backed them up towards the table full of parts, his hands cupping Minseok’s face as he continued to assault his mouth. It was far more heated than any of the other kisses they had ever shared. Minseok could feel the warmth pool in his abdomen when his tongue slid against Lu Han’s.

Lu Han tugged gently at Minseok’s shirt, and Minseok was only too happy to return the favor. His hand went to Lu Han’s shoulders, to the lapel of his jacket, pushing back the fabric as best he could given his current position.

It was Lu Han’s turn to moan, the low and breathy noise mingled in with their kiss, making Minseok realize he would love to hear that sound over and over. They broke away when Minseok’s back thudded against the work table, jostling them back into reality.

It was only a momentary separation. Minseok took the opportunity to shove Lu Han’s jacket off of his shoulders, pushing the fabric as far as he could before Lu Han had to do the rest. While Lu Han was slipping off his jacket Minseok went to work on his own shirt, dragging his fingers down the edges a few buttons falling off in the process.

Lu Han’s shirt was next, Minseok making quick work of the garment, Lu Han losing more buttons than Minseok had. Their lips reconnected, Minseok threading his fingers through Lu Han’s hair. The press of naked flesh was disorienting, he felt half drunk.   
It was Lu Han who switched their positions, turning Minseok so it was his own back against the table. His hands roamed over Minseok's bare torso, pressing lightly into his skin.

Minseok sucked Lu Han’s bottom lip into his mouth and nibbled, his heart rate increasing the moment he heard Lu Han let out another throaty moan. Somewhere in all of their passion they had lost all care for where they were, who they were, and what they were doing.

If only they had been more aware. More careful.

The best Minseok could figure out was that Lu Han had hit one of the parts of the machine with his back, leading him to cry out. That was what had made them break their kiss. Lu Han turned around, presumably to remove the offensive metal object that was intruding upon their passion. Instead he grabbed a particular wire that was now sitting at the exact position that was needed for a very strange event to happen.

One moment Minseok had been staring at a shirtless Lu Han, ready to divest him of the last pieces of clothing he wore and see where they went from there. The next moment he was alone, standing shirtless in his study. There was a crackling noise, a strange light, and then Lu Han was gone without a trace.

 

 

  
Minseok stared at Junmyeon, into his dark eyes, wishing he could sense the man’s honesty. Anything to tell him what he was being told was the truth.

Junmyeon said he was his father. Could he really be the son of this man? This man who came back to his time after an impossibly long period of his life spent jumping between realities. Wasn't there a good chance he was completely and totally mad?

“Sir,” Yixing interrupted. “You have a visitor.”

Minseok looked towards the entrance of the dining room. Yixing wore a worried expression, rightfully so given what happened next.

Lu Han barged into the dining room. He looked furious, most definitely frustrated and...he was not wearing a shirt.

Minseok frowned. Hadn’t he just killed the man?

“Kim Minseok, my bedroom, now!” Lu Han wagged his finger in Minseok’s face. “If you don’t walk I will carry you,” he added as a threat.

Minseok frowned. Really though, he was certain he had just killed Lu Han.

 


	22. Temporary Truce

Still fuming, still pointing, still a little... half defrocked, Lu Han tried to contain himself. He was not doing too well unfortunately. He'd landed somewhere on the ground outside of Minseok's estate, more than a little miffed about the sudden shift in timelines. Of all the occasions for Minseok's machine to work! He hadn't even noticed the new progress on it. Or the wire, because young Minseok's machine still looked nothing like the one on which Lu Han had died. He supposed that was always the case though. Two machines, two different methods of functioning. Had young Minseok set it up already so that a single 'passenger' would end up right where Lu Han had ended? He should be fortunate he'd not been zapped somewhere random, surrounded by a hoard of hungry dinosaurs or something. In the meantime:

"God damnit, Minseok! I said  _your bedroom now!"_

This older Minseok, this  _murderer_ , made no move whatsoever. Instead he remained standing with his arms crossed. Lu Han noticed the myriad of empty liquor bottles and wine glasses on the table between him and Junmyeon. Speaking of Junmyeon...

"And you, sir, don't you move a muscle!" Lu Han shouted. 

Minseok stared at him like... like a very amusing dead man come recently back to life. He was drunk, too. A rarity to see. But as neither of them moved--in fact, Junmyeon looked just as bemused if not a little nervous--Lu Han spun around and pointed at Yixing instead. 

"You! Arrest Junmyeon and keep him tied up somewhere safe until we can deal with this mess, and no, Yixing, don't give me that look. You're not a servant at all, you're a very persuasive asshole who's interested in Minseok's time machine. I know all about you now. I met you in the past the day you met Minseok and I was there when he hired you on as a financial investor. Cut the crap, lock  _that man_  up or kill him, I don't even care right now. What's with this delay, now do it!"

Shockingly, it worked. Yixing spared one tiny, apologetic glance at Minseok, whose eyebrows were through the ceiling, said, "Yes, sir," and did just what Lu Han asked. Junmyeon squawked but was too inebriated to fight against Yixing's muscle. Finally, Minseok stepped up.

"Excuse me, but what?! What?! Yixing, what?" He was sobering up quickly now, Lu Han could tell.

"You. Bedroom, now--"

"What?!" cried MInseok again.

Lu Han sighed. "Oh, never mind. The bedroom can wait. But we need to talk. More importantly, I need you to send me back to the past again so I can see what mess I left there unexpectedly, and also would you mind not murdering me while I do it this time?" 

He put his hand around Minseok's elbow and started deftly moving him out of the door and towards the grand ballroom. In two seconds Minseok had shaken away his touch, but he followed nevertheless.

"I thought you were dead?" Lu Han heard him mutter, almost disappointed.

He scoffed. "Yes, sorry, it didn't work. Well, it kind of worked, but fortunately for me I was already in the past  _and_  you were halfway to engineering Model No. 1 of your time machine which, via accident, I touched at a most inopportune manner and  _poof_ , here I am again." 

Minseok stopped walking at this. "Inopportune manner? Would you care to explain?"

Lu Han halted too and gave Minseok the most deprecating look he could muster. "My shirt, gone. Buttons, gone. All thanks to you of course."

Minseok smiled. "Was I... preparing you for another funeral or..." His eyes dropped lower to where Lu Han's pants buckle had been messed with, though it was still hanging on. "Oh. Oh, I see." 

Lu Han rolled his eyes. "Look all you want, but right now I need you to get me back into the past so I can-"

"So you can what? Finish getting fucked by a more gullible me?" 

Lu Han wanted to scream. First of all, who said anything about _getting fu--_  Or maybe he should just let that one go. "Gullible?" he shouted at the man. "Look, you may not remember your past too well because of the accident, but you sir, are not now nor have you ever been gullible. In fact, you ten years ago are just as infuriating and annoying as you are right now. Also, I'd like to opt out of that contract to marry you. Baekhyun was right about you. You  _are_  a psychopath!"

The smug look on Minseok's face dropped in a heart beat. "B-Baekhyun? What?! You met Baekhyun?"

Something about the grief on Minseok's face made Lu Han almost pity him. Almost. "Yes, Baekhyun, your best friend. Brown hair, a little scrawny, likes to talk a lot and never shuts up. Pets people on the ass whenever he likes their contour well enough. The Baekhyun  _you_  somehow turned into a rat, _your own friend._ "

Without warning, Minseok slapped him. 

Lu Han gasped and clutched his cheek, more than a little shocked at the anger now permeating from Minseok's entire being. Oh. So, Minseok did remember Baekhyun... 

"I..." he began.

Minseok was quicker. "You shut up about Baekhyun."

"I," said Lu Han again, "I didn't know you remem-"

"I said, shut up about Baekhyun." 

Lu Han closed his mouth. His cheek hurt, but he was still more shocked than anything else. If Minseok was this upset about Baekhyun then it must mean it happened sometime after the accident which had caused his memory loss. 

"I'm sorry," said Lu Han quickly. 

Minseok winced and his arm twitched like he wanted to punch Lu Han again. Instead, he refrained. After a few tense moments, his face softened up and the wrinkles he'd conjured out of anger smoothed and disappeared. He began walking again, and Lu Han followed. Several minutes later as they stood before the machine, Minseok stopped and said, "I'm not letting you back onto this machine again until you explain more about what happened. Tell me about Yixing." Lu Han did so, warily, but Minseok seemed to accept his statement. "I suppose I'll question him soon. Okay, spill the rest. What kind of machine did I build anyways? You are... right, that there was an accident somewhere back then. I lost maybe half a decade of my memory. Has it been eight years now? I have the blueprints for the original device, but only a few scraps of it left. It was a one-way transport, but I never rebuilt that particular model. My earliest memories after that incident include deciding to create another prototype. That's when I moved from the townhouse back here to my estate. This one here is actually the third machine."

Lu Han cleared his throat, wondering what exactly to say. He figured somehow that explaining to Minseok how he'd been locked tongue to tongue with his younger self was not going to fly very well. Then again, part of that was already evident judging by the state of Lu Han's undress. He shivered, remembering still that he was without a shirt. Minseok's eyes flocked to his chest for a brief moment before very pointedly, Minseok looked away. 

"I'm sorry I killed you, by the way."

Lu Han sighed. "Save your apologies and don't do it again. It's been a month for me. I already hashed out regrets with your younger self."

Again, Minseok's eyes brushed up on Lu Han's half naked body. He grumbled, "Clearly, you did." 

"If it's any consolation, you drugged me at least once back in the past because you didn't trust me."

Minseok allowed himself a cautious smile. "Attaboy," he said with a smirk. 

Lu Han just groaned and rubbed his forehead. "Don't suppose you have an extra shirt anywhere laying around?"

"Your suitcase will still be in your bedroom. Also there's probably the shirt that is on your cold, dead body, if you care to fetch it." 

Lu Han felt his stomach churning, but he only glared sideways at Minseok.

"Sorry," said the man, not sorry at all. 

Lu Han bit the inside of his cheek and fumed silently for another minute or two. "Psychopath," he muttered. 

"I am indeed," said Minseok. "Can I ask... was the sex at least good?" 

Before Lu Han could do something stupid, like hit Minseok, or else kiss him, there came a scattering of tiny feet from across the floor. Lu Han stood up and followed the sound. Minseok, already bending over, sighed. 

"Hello there, Baekhyun," he said to the rat. The small animal hopped into his hand. Minseok deposited it on his shoulder. Baekhyun sniffed and squeaked, then turned his tiny red nose at Lu Han, who looked at the thing with newfound pity. 

"Baekhyun..." he said, full of sorrow. 

The rat squeaked again. Lu Han fancied it was a proper greeting, maybe even one of welcome. 

"Do you remember me then?" Another squeak. 

But Minseok turned around and blocked his view. "Don't get your hopes up. He may still be Baekhyun but he'll never do more than squeak, shit, or sleep, and if he's in a good mood maybe run a little maze, but that's it. Do you get it now, Lu Han? People who spend too much time around me end up dead, or like this. Better to end every bit of our agreement before the mood strikes me and I have you killed again."

"Or, better yet, I can help you solve the curse." 

Minseok raised one eyebrow, unimpressed. "By tag-teaming with me into more and more dimensions of time? I can barely control _when_ I send you, I can't maintain a link indefinitely. I don't even know what we're looking for. It could take ages and who knows when I'll d-- Who knows when we'll find something useful."

"No? But I know a great place to start."

"Yeah, and where is that?" 

"Kim Jongin, 1741." 

Minseok paused, and Baekhyun squeaked. "Kim Jongin, my great-grandfather?" 

Lu Han nodded. "You had a hunch about him before. Thought maybe it started around there because he disappeared like all the others, but unlike everyone else he can't be found anywhere in your dreams."

"Uh huh. Is that what I said?"

"Y-yes," said Lu Han, feeling more and more uncertain about this plan. 

Minseok smiled, and something about it was more unnerving than just about any other expression he'd seen before. "Lu Han."

"Yes."

"Let me tell you about something you obviously don't know yet about Kim Jongin."

"O-okay."

"Kim Jongin is my great-grandfather."

"Uh huh." 

"Kim Jongin is not in my dreams." 

"Right..."

"But in fact, and this is what the younger version of me wouldn't know: Kim Jongin showed up at my doorstep five years ago in the body of a ten year old little boy. He's fifteen now, and practically insane. Other than his name he hasn't a clue about who he is or what happened, or how he got here. I never gave you the grand tour before you died, did I?"

"Uhm, no." Lu Han shook his head at this revelation.

"Well then, how about we go meet him. After you get a new shirt of course. It gets drafty up the attic, where he prefers to live. Or would you prefer going back to the past right now so you can get it on with my _self_. You never did respond by the way. Was the sex any good? Or didn't you ever get that far...?" With one more look at Lu Han's body, he smirked and turned away. 

 

 

 


	23. Isn't there a book like this?

It really was too easy. Lu Han blindly followed him up the stairs to the attic, not once questioning if what he was telling him was the truth. All Minseok had to do was let the adventurer walk into the dark and musty room first, then shut and lock the door after him.

Lu Han quickly caught on, rushing the door and pounding on it. But by that time Minseok was already halfway down the winding staircase to the second floor, the key to the attic tucked into his front pocket for safekeeping.

He wasn’t about to trust a man he had killed. It didn’t make any sense. If anyone were to harbor ill will towards himself it would most certainly be someone like Lu Han, someone he murdered.

Of course Lu Han had proven useful, _assuming_ he was telling the truth. Kim Jongin was seemingly a key to the entire mystery, at least according to random notes Minseok had found from years prior. Of course he couldn't remember writing them due to the incident with the machine. But Kim Jongin had most definitely not shown up at his doorstep as a crazed young man, that was all a lie to lure Lu Han into the attic.

Minseok took his time getting back to the dining room, knowing full well that Yixing and Junmyeon would still be there. Yixing would likely be half in his cups by then, egged on by Junmyeon and flustered by the information Lu Han discovered about him.

It had taken Minseok every ounce of acting talent he had to pretend like he hadn’t known of Yixing’s past when Lu Han had started shouting about it. And again, it wasn’t because he remembered it that he knew but because his servant hadn’t been a lying asshole. He had taken care of Minseok after the incident that wiped his memory, solidifying their now unshakable bond.

True, Yixing was an opportunist, but he wasn’t soulless. He had cared for Minseok after the accident, at a time when Yixing’s coffers dried up due to one too many bad investments. He was broke and the only person who didn't hate him was Kim Minseok. It just so happened Kim Minseok needed help and Yixing was there to provide it and from then on out they were inseparable.

Yixing was a natural when it came to being a lackey. He had all of the habits of an upper class gentleman and an endless need of wealth. He would do whatever Minseok needed him to do for the right price and complain little of it.

And he was honest. He had told Minseok all about how they had met before he lost his memory. Or at least most of it….he had left out the bit about Lu Han being there.

Minseok found Junmyeon and Yixing talking in the dining room, the servant having bowed down to Junmyeon’s will and taken a seat at the large dining table. An empty wine bottle was in front of him, a sign of his inebriation.

When Yixing noticed Minseok standing in the doorway to the dining room he stood, hand knocking against the wine bottle, sending it on its side to roll down the table. The servant was well aware Minseok could care less he was drinking, or that he had let Junmyeon go. Yixing would know Minseok preferred to deal with Junmyeon himself, not have his servant hold him for some undetermined reason dictated by Lu Han. He was also well aware Kim Junmyeon would not be going anywhere anytime soon, not until he caused at least another bit of trouble.

“You met Lu Han before,” Minseok said matter-of-factly, locking eyes with Yixing.

“I- yes. But I can explain!” Yixing looked flustered. “I didn’t see the point in telling you about a man who disappeared. I never knew that…”

“You didn't say a word when I murdered him,” Minseok pointed out.

“Ah yes, about that.” Yixing rubbed the back of his neck. “Sir, you know I am not a scientist. I have no way of understanding how or why things happen the way they do but the Lu Han I met years ago, he seemed to be the Lu Han from here. I didn't want to interfere and change anything…”

“Understandable.” Minseok accepted his servant’s explanation. He turned towards Junmeyon and sighed. “You, on the other hand, are incorrigible.”

Junmyeon smiled widely. “I have no idea what you are talking about, old boy.”

Minseok took a seat next to Yixing, grabbing one of the half finished wine bottles and taking a swig. “You knew I would murder Lu Han. You lied about being my father. And now I am trying to find a very good reason not to murder you.”

“We’re family,” Junmyeon replied. “It would be a shame if you murdered your own flesh and blood.”

“Hmm, right. A shame.” Minseok didn’t agree with his logic. He took another drink, pondering his next move.

He heard a skittering of feet on the floor. It was Baekhyun, come to join in the meeting. He had hopped off Minseok’s shoulder somewhere between the first floor and when he had locked Lu Han up.

The rodent clawed his way up Minseok’s leg, the latter helping him up, setting him on the table. Baekhyun squeaked incessantly, unusual behavior for the rat.

“What is it?” Minseok asked, fully knowing he wouldn't get an answer.

More squeaks.

Yixing suddenly stood. “I smell smoke!”

Minseok took a whiff, the acrid odor hitting him full on. He was on his feet in a second, Baekhyun barely managing to claw onto his arm and onto his shoulder before he was upright.

A wave of heat hit the dining room. _Fire._

Minseok panicked, rushing towards the doorway. When he reached the hall he could see that the staircase was in flames, the fire spreading rapidly.

“Save the machine!” he screamed.

“What about Lu Han?” Yixing asked, standing right behind him, a look of sheer panic on his face.

“I said the machine!” Minseok yelled, heading towards the ballroom.

From somewhere behind him he could hear Junmyeon calmly musing, “Wasn’t there a book like this? Ahh, of course! You need to go to the roof, but alas you will become blind. But never fear, Jane Eyre will return to you!”

Minseok dashed towards the ballroom, his life’s work literally about to go up in flames.

  



	24. Into the Blaze

Lu Han beat on the door for a good five minutes, mostly out of annoyance because... if there was one thing Lu Han definitely was, stupid might qualify very nicely. He gave up and sank to the ground with his back to the barred door, looking around the room, coughing from the dust he'd stirred up by his entry. The attic was cold, damp, Lu Han was still without a shirt. There appeared to be at least three windows on the opposite wall set into the framework of the sloping, attic roof. Between him and them was a warped wooden floor and several pieces of furniture covered in white sheets so old the sheets had turned beige from disuse. He sighed. At least Minseok hadn't killed him outright. Or perhaps he'd just be left here to die slowly. Yes, yes that was also within the realm of probabilities. 

Right as he considered this though, footsteps appeared on the other side of the doorway, followed by the sound of someone putting a key to the lock. Lu Han jumped away from the doorway, looking about the room for something to defend himself. He grabbed a sheet because... why on earth not, maybe he would wrestle whoever came through the door and then... suffocate them...

The door gave way with another lurch. Lu Han flinched in anticipation. But.

"Lu Han! So good to see you again!" ... said Lu Han senior. 

The fight went out of his body as his arms sagged downwards. He huffed. "Figured I would see you again sometime," he said to his slightly older counterpart. 

"Yeah, well. If you haven't figured this out by now, but Minseok is rather difficult to deal with it. Takes two to get him under control. Or three. Three was a good number, man... the possibilities you can have with three."

Lu Han stared at himself, halfway astounded but honestly not really surprised. Then the older version snapped out of his trance and said briskly. "Now come on. We don't have much time. I just set fire to half the estate to make a point. Make haste!" 

"What!?" cried Lu Han, already following the man out of the room. From somewhere far off he could spell smoke. "Why would you do that?!"

"Don't worry, only a portion of one of the wings burns down. It's great actually, having advanced knowledge through... well, me." 

Lu Han coughed again and covered his nose with the sheet which he was still carrying. He noticed the other Lu Han was not taking them down the way they'd come up but through another attic hallway and down a different stair. 

"The fire's in the east wing, dining room, ballroom mostly."

"The ballroom?" cried Lu Han. "But Minseok's machine?!" 

"Exactly. Don't worry, they save it."

Lu Han scoffed. "Okay, then. Were they going to save me at least?"

There was no answer. The elder Lu Han as still hurrying down the stairwell and dashing down halls. Each time they reached a corner he'd stop and stare about wildly, as if trying to place where he was, or... Lu Han realized he was probably actually trying to remember where he was. After that he paid more attention. It was clear they were nowhere close to the actual fire, but Lu Han didn't breathe easy until they'd reached the ground floor and were out a side passage in the yard next to the estate. Only then did the other Lu Han slow down, wheeze a couple times, and face him.

"Now look, this is where I bug off again, but what you do next is critical." 

"What do you mean? What do I do?"

"You'll find out when the situation presents itself."

Lu Han shook his head furiously. "No, no no. You don't get to do that. You came back here from the future to help me out. The least you can do is tell me what exactly I'm supposed to do!"

From around another corner of the estate he was beginning to hear shouts. The older Lu Han ignored them and stared only at himself. He put his hand on Lu Han's arm and attempted a smile. "Look, kid. I don't make the rules. I just follow the past. We're both here for a reason, that's all I know about."

Frustruated, Lu Han whined. "Just tell me how to save Minseok then, okay?!" 

The other looked away. After a pause he said, "If I could you think I wouldn't? Even in the future, we're still working on that."

"Who's we."

"Me and Minseok."

Lu Han wanted to scream. "How do you even still like him!? He's no good, _Lu Han._  Haven't you seen that? Time and time again he's lied to us, tricked us, had me killed! Left me in a burning house, and then you pop around and say, 'save Minseok, he's our  _soulmate'_. Lu Han, I know the man is handsome, and he  _can_  be likeable..." He'd spent a whole month with the younger version of Minseok, damnit. He was totally likeable, maybe even... "But." 

But the other Lu Han still smiled that half smile, a little sad and full of grim tales. "It's you that don't get it, Lu Han. But don't worry, you will. You're going to save him.  _We_ are going to save him. From more than just his curse. Now go. Time's important here, and I know you'll be fine because... well because I'm still here standing as proof of that. So go, now. Take the sheet. You'll need it."

Lu Han cringed, shutting his eyes in frustration as he ran his hand through his ragged hair. When he opened them, the other Lu Han was gone. He could  _hit_  himeself right now if he could. Instead, he steeled his resolution, bunched the furniture sheet over his shoulder and marched across the grass. 

Around the first corner he finally saw the blaze of fire. Smoke and flames escaped from the ballroom window on the second floor, and despite the fact Lu Han had told him everyone would be okay, still Lu Han panicked until he spotted the crouched figures of Minseok, Yixing, and Junmyeon laying exhausted in the ground far from the flames. They didn't notice him approaching. Minseok was wheezing where he huddled around the disassembled features of his time machine. Junmyeon sat blandly on his butt, watching the blaze. Yixing was already getting up.

"Give me the key," he shouted to Minseok, who was sitting up fiddling with something in his pocket.

"Screw you and the damned key.  _I_ locked him up, I'll get him out. Stay here and don't turn your back on this machine. If Junmyeon so much as looks at it funny, toss him back into the flaming ballroom." 

Minseok stood, and Lu Han noticed blood trickling from his leg.

"Minseok, you can't even walk," yelled Yixing. 

"I can walk just fine!" he shouted back. However, he stumbled at the first step and nearly collapsed. Persistently, he stood up again and was halfway down the side of the lawn when he saw Lu Han. 

Both of them froze, Minseok with a weird look, Lu Han cautiously holding his gaze.

"Well, I'll be damned. You got out anyways."

"Sorry if you wanted me to burn," said Lu Han. It was almost a joke. 

Minseok shrugged but his body immediately slumped. In a couple seconds, Lu Han was at his side, drawing him up by the arm and leading him back to where Yixing sat by the machine, eyes open in shock. Junmyeon looked hardly fazed. 

Next to him, Minseok grumbled. "I'm starting to think you're more immortal than my family, and that's actually quite a feat. How did you get out?"

"I had help." 

"From who?" Minseok gave him a sideways look. 

"Someone from the future. Someone who said you were worth saving."

Minseok scoffed. "Is that right? And you, believed this person?"

"I don't know yet."

"A wise answer." 

Lu Han laughed. "Yeah, tell me about it." 

He lead Minseok back to Yixing who took the man from him and laid him down on the grass, the better to examine his injured leg. Lu Han listened to them a moment, Minseok recounting how he'd forgotten a few of the parts, that he'd have to rebuild them later. Junmyeon still didn't seem entirely impressed that they'd saved anything. At some point, Lu Han realized the man was not in fact tied up, and that Minseok didn't exactly have any enmity for either of them. How come it was just with him then that Minseok liked to mess? 

"I guess there's nothing to put out the fire?" asked Lu Han. He stared at is ragged, dirty sheet wondering exactly what he was supposed to do with it. The other Lu Han said something now was absolutely critical, but he could hardly put out a fire with a single sheet. 

"We wait," said Minseok. "Whole place can burn I suppose. There's nothing in there now that anyone cares for."

At this, Junmyeon scoffed. "Could have asked me.  _I care_."

"It's a building, uncle. A house nobody loved. Let it burn."

Lu Han didn't tell him what he knew, that only a portion would be destroyed. He was more interested in why Minseok was suddenly looking ine ach of his jacke pockets, in and around his shirt, even down his pants and trouser legs, and finally... Minseok put his hands in his hair, threading his black locks while the expression on his face turned to one of sheer horror.

"What? What is it?" asked Yixing. 

It took a second for Minseok to answer. But then. "Baekhyun!" 

"What!?" cried Yixing and Lu Han together.

Minseok looked ready to cry. "He was here! He was right here! I had him in my pocket in the... in the ballroom..."

The four of them looked steadily up at the house which was still completely ablaze. Then Lu Han looked at the sheet in his hands. Something in his heart began to beat, extra loud and extra heavy. No way he would die. He couldn't die. What was it Minseok had said a moment ago? Lu Han was practically immortal. Now way he was dying today, because if he did, he wouldn't also be in the future still living and still loving the most unloveable person in all of time. 

Baekhyun on the other hand...

Resolutely, Lu Han stood up. Where he got his courage, he couldn't exactly say. He just knew now what he had to do. "I'm going in." 


	25. A Logical Next Step

Minseok struggled to stop Lu Han from going into the burning building, Baekhyun was  _ his _ friend, he would get him out. Unfortunately his leg injury made it impossible for him to catch up, leaving him to weakly stumble then land on the lawn as Lu Han rushed towards the conflagration. 

He could still feel the heat from the fire at this distance. His skin burned, his eyes watered. His lungs stung with each breath, he had sucked in more than a little acrid smoke while he disassembled and dragged the machine out of the house. 

His whole life was in shambles. Part of it laid out on the lawn of his ancestral home, part of it unaccounted for in the fire. 

“You know I would have liked to have kept my portrait,” Junmyeon remarked from somewhere behind Minseok. “I have fond memories of sitting for it.”

Minseok ignored his uncle’s reminiscence. He stared at the fire, stared at the dark and foreboding entryway -- not even a door but a chunk of collapsed wall -- that Lu Han had ran into. Minutes seemed like hours as he watched for any sign of his best friend, any sign of Lu Han. 

He was ready to give up hope when he saw movement, twin figures dashing away from the fiery backdrop. They were huddled together, a sheet thrown over both of their backs. 

Minseok watched in shock, not believing his eyes. Was it…

Baekhyun collapsed in front of him, Lu Han no longer strong enough to hold him up. Up. The adventurer quickly fell to his knees coughing, the dirtied sheet slipping from his shoulders. 

_ Baekhyun was no longer a rat. _

Baekhyun raised his head and glared at Minseok. “He’ll never do more than squeak, shit, or sleep and if he's in a good mood maybe run a little maze, but that's it,” he repeated Minseok's words from earlier in the day, narrowing his eyes at his best friend. “You put me in a maze! I hate mazes! And don’t get me started on that atrocious food you fed me!”

The tears that streamed down Minseok’s face were no longer from the smoke. They were tears of happiness, of relief, at seeing his best friend back in human form. He ignored Baekhyun’s complaints and pulled him into his arms, happiness overcoming him. He had no idea how his friend had shifted back, the  _ how  _ of the situation didn't matter, only that he was back. 

  
  


The five men watched the fire burn into the night, by dawn the estate was partially destroyed but the fire had died down, leaving smoldering rubble in its wake. The night had passed quickly by, Minseok and Baekhyun had spoken for hours, Minseok finally regaining control on the emotions he worked so hard to never show. Baekhyun complained endlessly about his time as a rat, but Minseok knew he wasn’t really that upset. He could tell.

Near dawn Baekhyun turned his attention to Yixing,leaving Minseok to raise an eyebrow at the pair. He couldn’t recall them ever having known each other before, but then again he didn't remember everything. 

Around that time Lu Han fetched water from the nearby well, hauling it back with Junmyeon’s help (and his constant protests) so the other, injured members of their group could clean their faces and sate their thirst. 

By dawn everyone was exhausted but their morale was improving. 

Minseok glanced at the pieces of his machine now and then, frowning. But then he would catch sight of Baekhyun and he would feel his sadness dissipate for a brief period of time. He had missed having him around...at least having him in human form. The guilt he had felt since Baekhyun had been turned into a rat was immense, weighing on him night and day. 

It was at one of these moments, when he stared sadly at his machine, that Lu Han sat down next to him. Minseok dug the toe of his shoe into the grass. He was hugging his knees to his soot covered shirt, the parts of his grandest invention a few feet in front of him.

Minseok kept his eyes on the disassembled device while he spoke. In some ways he was too afraid to look at the man he had wronged so horribly, who had ran back into a burning building to rescue Minseok’s best friend at the possible expense of his own life. 

Minseok cleared his throat. “Thank you for rescuing Baekhyun.”

“Thank you for attempting to rescue me. After your machine was safe, I mean,” Lu Han responded. 

Minseok cringed, feeling ashamed. “Ah, yes, well the --”

“I know how much it means to you, no need to explain,” Lu Han waved his words away. “I suppose it means a lot to me too.”

Minseok was surprised to hear it. He gave Lu Han a questioning look.

Lu Han shrugged. “Whether I like it or not my future is tied to that thing.” He gestured towards the pile of machine parts. “It appears to be tied to you as well, even if you murdered me and locked me in a burning building.”

“It wasn’t burning when I locked you inside,” Minseok pointed out, instantly realizing how horrible a response it was.

Lu Han sighed. “I don’t understand why or how, but in some way we are supposed to love each other. So please stop trying to kill me.  _ Please _ .”

“How do I know you won't try to kill me?” Minseok asked. “If I were you I would try to ki-”

“I am not you, and you are not me. I’ve never killed anyone in my life and unless I have to do so to save you, I don't plan on it,” Lu Han answered firmly. 

“But I hired you to kill someone and-”

“No.” Lu Han shook his head. “No what-ifs. Minseok, I’ve been tossed all over the place, moved through time and I don't know what else and through all of it I haven’t killed you or tried to kill you. Even when I knew you murdered me in cold blood I stayed to help you. What else could I possibly do to earn your trust?”

Minseok considered everything Lu Han had been through, what the shirtless man had told him only a few hours after Minseok had killed him. Should he blindly trust his words? He knew without a doubt he felt a tinge of guilt for what he had put Lu Han through. He felt ashamed about his behavior, but did that equal trust?

It at least equated to a promise, Minseok decided. “I won’t kill you.”

“See, that wasn’t that difficult.” Lu Han reached over and lightly patted Minseok on the back. “So now what?”

Minseok smirked. “Well,I have an injured leg,  a best friend who used to be a rat but turned mysteriously back into a human, a man I murdered who refuses to give up on me, an uncle who terribly lied to me for as yet unknown reasons, a servant who omitted some important facts, and a half burned down country estate, not to mention a destroyed time machine. I think my next step is obvious.”

Lu Han raised his eyebrows. “It is?”

“Of course.” Minseok looked Lu Han in the eyes. “You never told me how the sex was. I want to know. It’s the logical next step.” He waited patiently, finding Lu Han’s mortified expression greatly amusing. 

 


	26. A Not So New Commission

Staring into Minseok's mischievous eyes, Lu Han choked and balked. 

"Kim Minseok, if you try to get into my pants right now, I will hit you. And that's a promise," he said as cool as he could. Which wasn't much, but the sigh on Minseok's face which said 'well I tried' was a little worth it. 

"Message received."

"And anyways," Lu Han added. "Feels a little like cheating at this point."

It was Minseok's turn to choke. "Excuse me? Cheating on who?" 

"With your younger self," Lu Han answered blithely. "Shame you don't remember. You could be halfway charming back in the day. Ask Baekhyun, I'm sure he could tell you." 

Minseok made a confused snear but said nothing to this. In the meantime their attention returned to the former rat who was now stretching on the grass a little like a dog but with his arms and feet all askew. 

"Ohhh to have beautiful long limbs again!" he reflected loudly to no one in particular. 

Minseok turned back to Lu Han and whispered, "Tell me what happened then? When you found him?" 

Lu Han swallowed heavily. In truth he did not really know. Baekhyun had last been seen in the ballroom, but Lu Han had been unable to make it that far. Instead he traced the path in which Minseok, Yixing, and Junmyeon must have escaped. Near the entryway to the ballroom, he'd had to take shelter against a wall when something crashed down from above him. There'd been a room there, barely a broom closet, shattered potions and other specimens melting in the heat of the surrounding blaze. And on the floor there, Baekhyun, the man. 

He shared this with Minseok, and said, "Tell _me_ the truth then. I'd just assumed Baekhyun's accident had something to do with the time machine. Was I mistaken or--?"

Minseok grimaced. "It was, but only partly. I suppose you know that before I placed you in the device I mixed a potion into your drinks, a drug designed to facilitate an easier transfer through time. Well, it took me a while to perfect that concoction." 

Lu Han just stared at him. "You mean you fed Baekhyun literal poison and put him into the machine just like that?"

The other scoffed. "You would think that, and I guess you've every right to imagine I would. But no, Baekhyun did that all by himself. Poor fool, he thought he was helping me. I was unaware of his efforts until it was too late. He disappeared, the machine exploded--this was my second prototype. When the dust cleared there was no Baekhyun, but instead... the rat." 

"Huh." Lu Han mused on this for a while. "So how'd he come back then?" 

"Magic," said Minseok. "I don't know. I'm too tired to figure that out, and right this minute we have other pressing matters." 

"Yeah, like where are we going to sleep tonight," said Lu Han, staring at the ruined mansion. The sun was now cresting over the nearest treeline. In daylight the wreckage looked if possible even worse. 

"I was thinking more along the lines of putting this machine back together again, and then maybe food, but sure, worry about sleep. God knows I don't." 

At this, someone coughed intentionally soft to draw out their attention. It was Yixing who stared at Minseok with fear and a little regret.

"What is it, Yixing?" asked Minseok. 

The servant-investor looked away at the house and then back on the master. "Well, it's just I'm afraid with the fire, half your lab also burned down, including the medicine that keeps you mostly awake..."

There was silence for a while, broken only the breathing of the five assembled men, the embers burning silently in the distance, and the chirping of some early morning birds. Then Minseok looked around, wearier than ever and said, "I'm going to die." 

 

 

 

 

By noon Minseok and Lu Han had recovered enough supplies from the non-burnt portion of the mansion to make an executive decision. They, along with Baekhyun, who was extraordinarily needy right now for human comfort, would be traveling tonight for town. Lu Han then watched Minseok arguing with Junmyeon who absolutely refused to leave the estate, fire damage or not. If left him no other choice but to leave Yixing behind as well to "watch over him or else". 

Before they left Yixing cornered Lu Han privately, backed him into the side of the carriage, and stared him down hard. 

"I'm leaving Minseok in your care, Lu Han," he said with all due seriousness and not a little bit of threat. "Do you know what this means? It means his safety and his health is in your power, and if something happens to him I will hunt you down and kill you."

Lu Han blew a soft puff of air across his lips. "You too, huh?" he said, thinking of the other Lu Han and his absolute dedication to Minseok. "Can I ask you a question? What makes you so loyal to him? Minseok told me you went broke off your investments, but you're honestly too good of a lackey to be only acting the part."

With his arm resting on the carriage door Yixing looked away longingly in the direction of the estate. "Lu Han, when you're down in the dumps and you receive a benefactor like him, you learn to appreciate what you've got. Sure, he's a recluse and psychopath, but he's also a genius, and I've never seen a man cry harder when he lost his best friend."

"So this is your cheesey 'he inspires pity and devotion' routine," Lu Han interrupted him. "Alright, that sounds legitimate enough. So let me ask you this: how come you told him everything else about yourself, but nothing about me?"

Yixing's lips wrangled up into a funny smile. At the same time he shrugged and took a step back from Lu Han and the carriage. "Let's just say, I'm not the only person receiving visits from the future,  _Lu Han_." 

Before he left Yixing pressed a soft bundle into Lu Han's hands containing all that remained of Minseok's medication and a letter about when to admister it. Later on when Minseok wasn't looking Lu Han went through the list. It seemed Minseok only had a few doses of the drug which kept him sane (and awake). After that until more was made, he would be prone to sleeping more and more often, which meant dreaming more and more often. Which meant increased fits of near insanity whenever he awoke. Lu Han remembered only too well the time Minseok had torn into his bedroom after returning from the dreamworld, only to throw himself onto Lu Han's bed and try to throttle him. He couldn't say he was all too happy to get to experience the same thing again. At least he had now something which might make those fits not as bad. 

"Are we ready?" said Minseok finally, before coaxing Lu Han and Baekhyun into the carriage. He tapped the hood where the young man Yixing had acquired from somewhere in the neighborhood would drive them to town. With another lurch, they were off.

Lu Han sat opposite the two men. His legs entwined with Baekhyun's outstretched feet. Within minutes Baekhyun was fast asleep with his head resting on Minseok's shoulder. Minseok himself sat upright, perfectly prim and correct, like he was trying extra hard not to pass out from exhaustion. On and beneath the seat next to Lu Han were the wrapped up pieces of Minseok's device. 

"What happens when you fall asleep?" Lu Han asked him, just to break the silence. 

Minseok smiled and batted his eyelashes. "Have you really not been paying attention all this time? I don't sleep, I just... travel."

Huffing, Lu Han replied, "I know that. I mean, does it happen instanteously? Do you usually know where you are, _when_  you are? Is the duration the same there as in real time. Is--"

"You ask a lot of questions." 

"I know."

"So you're genuinely curious?"

"Hey, I'm just trying to make conversation. Conversation helps a person stay awake." He grinned. 

Minseok snorted and looked away. Baekhyun was starting to snore. And honestly, it was Lu Han who wanted to stay awake. He hadn't slept at all since arriving back in this timeline; he was just too afraid of what might happen if Minseok passed out right now. How nice it might be to fall into a doze, or even a deeper sleep.The carriage rocked so evenly on this stretch of the road, the shades were pulled down. Baekhyun made it look easy and Lu Han longed for some shuteye. 

But as much as that appealed to him, he knew it didn't appeal to Minseok in the same way. 

"When was the last time you slept?" he asked. "I mean, really slept. No traveling, no dreams, just sleep."

Minseok yawned. "Somewhere around fifteen years ago."

Lu Han's eyes widened. "For fifteen years you've what, never gotten true rest?"

"It's like that, what can I say? Why on earth do you think I've been so adamant about building a machine which would adequately allow someone else to dreamwalk the world with me?"

"I... uhm."

"When someone else goes with me, they share the burden, they let me rest. Tell me, when you met me ten years ago how was I then? I can only recall from about eight years ago after the accident, but I believe even then I was still more of a functioning being than I am now. The dreams didn't take so much from me then, as they do now. Nowadays, most times I fall asleep, because of the medicine Yixing and I worked on, I don't sleep too deeply. The result is that my dreams do not last long, but also that I don't rest. Without that medication, I might sleep for hours, even days. And when I awake, it's like being ripped back from the brink of death. Sometimes I wish I would just never wake, to never feel that pain. Unfortunately, at least so far... I always do."

Lu Han didn't quite know what to say. He forced his jaw to close and his gaze to look away. At anything other than the casual expression on Minseok's face. He explained this as a man might explain what he planned to eat for dinner, or even breakfast tomorrow. Yet that was how Minseok lived his entire life. Something caught unpleasantly in his chest and Lu Han dared another look at the man opposite him. Minseok was gazing out the shaded window, at the shapes going past on the road. He had maneuvered ever so slightly so that Baekhyun's neck was not resting in an impossible angle. He held one of his friend's hands between his own. Lu Han could not even begin to guess how Minseok had survived this long, alone without family, deprived of his best friend, forever hounded by the shadows of his family of dreamwalkers. 

"I'll help you."

Minseok gave a slight airy snort and leveled his eyes back on Lu Han. "So you've said." 


	27. Hugs and Kisses

Minseok pushed the uneven wooden door open, coughing at the dust that invaded his already beleaguered lungs. He limped inside the dark cottage, Baekhyun’s hands practically glued to his shoulders as he walked. Lu Han was outside by the carriage, gathering their luggage (if you could call the haphazard parts of a time machine and some salvaged personal items luggage). 

“Didn’t you have have someone clean this place now and then?” Baekhyun coughed at the dusty interior.

“I did, but I never checked their work,” Minseok answered, frowning at the accumulated dust and grime. 

Lu Han was huffing when he carried the first load of items into the cottage, his labored breathing acting as a reminder to Minseok that he was doing all of the work alone.

“Let me help you.”

“No, you’re injured,” Lu Han turned down his offer of help, but gave Baekhyun a pointed stare. 

Baekhyun yawned and turned away, ignoring the silent plea for help. 

Lu Han didn't press the matter further. 

Minseok limped further into the cottage. He periodically stopped to tugged off the once bright white sheets, now a muddy cream color, covering the furniture in the sitting room. 

He would have to make due with this dusty, dark old place. His family had owned it for well over a century. It was originally a grace and favor cottage for the senior household servants that had grown too old to continue to work for the family. Minseok hadn’t kept a full staff at the estate and neither had his father, leaving the cottage to stand neglected for decades. Now it would be his homebase, at least until the estate could be cleaned up to the point where it was inhabitable. 

His first order of business was to reassemble the machine. He had limited time before he ran out of the medication that would keep him alert, he needed to have the machine working before he slipped into days of sleep. 

“I want people food,” Baekhyun whined.

Minseok sighed. “You’ll have to ask Lu Han, unless you go get it yourself.”

Baekhyun looked appropriately mortified at walking around town alone, which lead him to beg Lu Han (who was still hauling in machine parts) to fetch him something to eat. 

Lu Han reluctantly agreed, setting of directly after bringing in the last of the luggage. 

“Help me carry these into the dining room,” Minseok instructed, pointing towards the disassembled machine. This time Baekhyun didn’t balk at helping. 

“You really have a thing for setting this up in strange places, don’t you,” Baekhyun muttered. 

“It’s the only room that will work here.”

They spent the better part of an hour moving the pieces. Minseok bit back the pain that seared up his leg with every step, getting worse the more he moved. 

Once they had completed their task, Minseok lowered himself to the bare floor, stretching his leg out in front of him and massaging it. 

“Minseok?” Baekhyun said quietly, taking a seat next to his best friend. 

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry for...well, you know.” Baekhyun rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. 

Minseok knew what he was referring to; the time he had used the machine without permission and ended up a rat “You don’t need to be sorry.” Minseok thought if anyone should be sorry it should be him. He was the one that built the device that allowed the accident to happen. Everything after that, the failed business partners, Baekhyun’s plight, what happened to Lu Han -- he was the person who had given it all an opportunity to occur, ultimately he was the one to blame. 

“No, actually I do need to apologize. I mean, I peed on your time machine more than once, also on your bed, and your favorite jacket. Listen, it is really hard being a rat and not having a proper bathroom, especially when you insisted on carrying me around constantly.”

“You did what?!” Minseok glared at his best friend. 

“But I’ve missed you so much! Isn’t it great having me back!” Baekhyun grabbed his friend and pulled him into a tight hug. 

Minseok swallowed his anger and hugged Baekhyun back.  _ Yes _ , it was wonderful to have his best friend back again.

Baekhyun’s stomach grumbled, loud enough for Minseok to hear. 

“I wonder where Lu Han got off too,” Minseok said, moving away from the hug he struggled to his feet. He had directed the man to go to the small inn a street over, it shouldn’t take him more than half an hour to secure basic provisions. 

“Maybe he got lost,” Baekhyun offered, holding out his arm for Minseok to steady himself. 

“I highly doubt a person who has travelled to the south pole and back would get lost in such a tiny village,” Minseok muttered. He limped towards the front door, Baekhyun following. When he opened the door he heard a commotion. It didn’t sound violent or angry, but boisterous. Raised voices, chatter, was coming from down the lane.

Minseok hobbled out to the main road with Baekhyun's help. He snorted at the sight before him.

Lu Han was surrounded by a dozen admirers, villagers who had no doubt heard of the famous adventurer's exploits through weekly periodicals. Girls with stars in their eyes, men who stared at him adoringly for his bravery and perseverance, and Lu Han basking in their love, a smug look on his face.

“Your boyfriend is famous.” Baekhyun whistled. 

“He isn't my boyfriend,” Minseok responded, continuing to watch the energetic crowd making their way towards his cottage. Lu Han was eating it all up, smiling and nodding as he was peppered with words of love. Minseok sighed.

“How are you going to get any work done with Lu Han’s fan club? I am sure they aren’t going to scatter to in the wind the moment he returns,” Baekhyun remarked, sounding more than a little jealous. 

Minseok frowned. Baekhyun had a point. 

When Lu Han neared the cottage his fans caught sight of Minseok. The atmosphere shifted, smiles were replaced by frowns. He heard whispers, no doubt they were remarking on the reclusive madman who lived outside of town, the man whose estate had burned nearly to the ground the night before. 

Minseok shrugged off the disapproving stares and gossip. He had to do something to drive Lu Han’s admirers off, and do it quickly so they could all get to work. Without completely thinking through the repercussions of his actions he limped forward, towards the famous adventurer, deciding on just the trick to get his fan club to scatter.

Lu Han’s hangers-on moved away the closer Minseok got, all staring at him with a mixture of awe and fear. Minseok could care less, he kept his eyes trained on Lu Han, who gave him a puzzled look. 

Minseok smirked. He hurried the last few steps between him and Lu Han, hobbling forward until he was pressed into the adventure, his arms around his neck. Without a word he pressed his lips to Lu Han’s, a chorus of whispers surrounding the pair. Lu Han seemed too shocked to reciprocate, keeping his lips closed but not pushing away. 

When Minseok broke the kiss the townspeople were already retreating, likely terrified at what the madman would do, likely wondering about Lu Han’s relationship with him. 

“Welcome home, dear,” Minseok whispered, chuckling at Lu Han’s wide eyed expression. 


	28. New Dreamer

Lu Han slammed the door of the cottage closed behind them, having waited angrily for Minseok to enter first. Baekhyun had already scurried in at the first sign of Lu Han's temper and disappeared into another room. Minseok appeared to be waiting for him to say something. Much as it pained him, much as he'd rather let the entire incident go  _just out of spite_ , Lu Han turned around and glared at him. 

"'Dear?!' Did you just call me, 'dear'"?!

A slight pause of confusion passed across Minseok's face. He tilted his head and said, "I'm sorry, you're mad I called you _'_ 'dear' in front of a streetful of busybodies, but you're not mad I kissed you?" 

"I'll address that when I'm ready," Lu  Han hissed. "For now though I just want it on the record: do not  _ever_  call me 'dear', okay?" Lu Han shuddered. "My parents called each other 'dear'. My sweet old grandmother called me 'dear.'" 

Minseok still didn't get it. "So... it's an intimacy thing for you?"

"No, it's an  _old person_  thing. Just don't say it."

"Would you like me to call you something else then?" asked Minseok with another mischievous smile. "How about..." 

"You can call me Lu Han. Now, anyways. I talked to the people at the inn and they'll be sending a delivery boy around in about an hour. I suppose you know you're super unpopular in this village, right?" 

Minseok smiled. "Yeah, I kind of gathered that. Comes from living in the big house for almost a decade and not throwing any large parties."

"And here I thought you earned your reputation because of all your potion fumes and loud explosions and missing bodies." 

"There might also be some of that," Minseok allowed. 

Lu Han huffed once and waltzed passed him deeper into the cottage. They'd been here no more than a couple hours, but by now he knew every knook and cranny. There wasn't much to explore. The cottage had two floors, one staircase, and approximately eight rooms. Each of the three upstairs bedrooms were furnished exactly the same way with a bed, dresser, chair and side table. There was one room that had recently been converted into a bathroom probably in the last generation. The pipes barely worked and the toilet needed maintenance but it would suit.

Lu Han had claimed the bedroom closest to the stair. Coincidentally, it was the farthest from Minseok's room. He didn't necessarily dwell on that implication, assuming it enough that they'd be working in close enough quarters during the day. If Minseok ever used his bed at night and happened to wake up in a trance, maybe at least he'd murder Baekhyun first. 

"What are you laughing at?" 

Minseok's question pulled Lu Han out of his thoughts. 

"What?"

"You looked like you were... musing."

"Musing, that's one way of putting it," said Lu Han, who was not about to admit he still honestly worried about dying.

"Well, if you're done musing, why don't we get to work on that machine some more."

"Sounds like a plan. Where's Baekhyun?"

"Asleep, apparently," said Minseok. "Turns out, waking up as a human again is quite taxing on the body."

Lu Han frowned. "Do you think he's okay?"

"Yes. Probably."

Lu Han's frown deepened. 

Minseok quickly explained. "I mean, theoritically he's fine. But he's lived as a rat for years now. Imagine having that tiny body and then suddenly having to more around sixty kilograms of weight. He's just napping. I checked on him; he's fine. Practically purring."

As they passed the foot of the stairs, Baekhyun took that opportunity to let out one particularly long snore.

"I see what you mean." 

For the rest of the afternoon Minseok puttered and dinged things back together on the dining room table. As Lu Han unhelpfully observed, most of the pieces had been salvaged; the rest Minseok just had to make do with size adjustments or rerouting some of the wires. Lu Han handed him things, and then waited. Then he'd hand him something else, and wait. He yawned a lot, so much that Minseok gave him a seething look as if to say 'Really?  _You're_  the tired one?' 

By late afternoon there came a knock on the door. 

"I'll get it," said Lu Han.

"Say hi to your fan club while you're out there." Minseok chortled eerily.

Lu Han sighed, but when he opened the door, seriously expecting more curious townspeople, it was to find a young man no older than twenty-five standing on the step with an absolutely petrified expression.

"Y-your... your... g-gr-oceries," he stuttered, and the whole box in his arms shuddered violently. Before any of the glass bottles broke, Lu Han grabbed it from him and smiled, hoping to put the boy at ease. 

"You okay there?" he asked. 

The boy nodded. His trembling jaw spoke another tune. 

"What's your name?" Lu Han hadn't seen him at the inn, but figured him for a local if he was on delivery duty. Probably drew the shortest draw too if he was delivering to  _this_  house. 

"Do K-Kyungsoo," he answered. 

"Ah. Well, Kyungsoo. Thank you for the groceries. Are there more boxes?" he asked, seeing the wagon cart behind him. 

Kyungsoo nodded.

"Excellent. Well, why don't I take this one. You can grab the other and follow me inside."

Do Kyungsoo looked like he'd prefer to eat rat poison than come with Lu Han inside the cottage, but he did. Lu Han lead them down the short hall to a quaint little kitchen, setting down the box on the center island table. Kyungsoo's box landed beside it with a thunk of rattling glass. It was echoed by a loud thump of metal and the shriek of Minseok cursing. 

Both Lu Han and Kyungsoo flinched, Lu Han more out of habit. Do Kyungsoo on the other hand seemed about to shrivel up and die.

"I wouldn't worry too much. He's probably okay," said Lu Han.

"O-okay?" 

It occurred to Lu Han that Kyungsoo wasn't necessarily concerned with Minseok's current state of being. "Hey, can I ask you a question?"

Once again the boy nodded, his eyes frantically pleading with Lu Han to just let him run away. Lu Han ignored that. 

"Yeah. Why's everyone so terrified of Mr. Kim?" 

On second thought, asking an already petrified delivery boy this question may not heed anything new of value. He froze and could not answer. Lu Han prompted him some more. "I mean, I get that he's weird, and kind of creepy, and just a little too mischievous... and potentially dangerous..." He paused. Kyungsoo's head had nodded at each description, more and more each time. "Okay, let me try another route here. You don't particularly look like a gossip, but here's something you can spread around town. Kim Minseok is an orphan, he's very eccentric, but also extremely lonely most of the time. He's devoted to the few friends he has." Lu Han didn't necessarily count himself in that category, but  _details_. "We're currently here out of necessity, not to make waves. Indeed, I hope to be able to leave here sometime soon. But for the time being, you can bring our groceries every other day, and I'll pay you a nice tip. You don't need to act so scared, you're not going to die, or get turned into a rat or... well, anyways. Do Kyungsoo, what say you? Do we have a deal? Spread a few nice rumors about us, hm? Pretty please?"

The boy looked a little thunderstruck. Great black eyes open as wide as they could go, his by now familiar head nod took a few extra seconds to strike. 

"S-sir? Can... can I ask something else then?"

"Certainly. Anything," said Lu Han, sounding chipper.

"Are... are you..." his voice dropped to a whisper. " _t-together?"_

And, just like that, Lu Han's smile dropped. "Everything I just said, and that's the one thing you're most curious about?" 

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, before he could decide upon an answer there came another wild screaming from somewhere else in the house. Both Lu Han and Kyungsoo turned towards the noise. The dinging noises from Minseok's new lab had also stopped. The three of them met in the hallway, nervous and just a little bit (or in Kyungsoo's case, a lot) petrified. Baekhyun was running towards them like he'd seen a ghost. He was by now very much  _not_ still asleep.

"The French Revolution!" he was screaming! "I was in the goddamn French Revolution! Minseok, why on earth did I fall asleep and dream I was in the French Revolution! Did I inherit your curse!? How is that even possible?! It was so real! The French Revolution!!! And Lu Han was there!! He said—" Baekhyun stopped dead in his tracks when he realized there was an extra edition to the party. His eyes grew even bigger, if that were possible. Then, "Oh. Shit. Hi. Do Kyungsoo... I  _remember you!_  You grew up. Wow, hey! Remember we used to play around here as kids!? Damn, you're looking really good these days. Impressive bum!" 


	29. Sergeant

Minseok felt bad for the country lad, cringing when Baekhyun elaborated on his _nice bum_. He looked positively mortified, hands clenched at his sides. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, and really it probably was, that Minseok saw a sliver of himself in the way the boy looked desperate to run away.

Minseok cleared his throat, not hiding his annoyance. “French Revolution?” he asked, feigning a smile in Baekhyun’s direction.

“Yes!” his friend’s attention was turned back to his dream. “I was in Versailles and Lu Han–“ He pointed, wagging his finger in Lu Han’s face. “You were flirting with Marie Antoinette, you rogue! Among everything else that was going on you still had time to comment on her diamonds!”

Lu Han was immediately uncomfortable, hands fidgeting as he straightened his jacket. “I don’t know what–“

A commotion sounded from outside the cottage, another instrument to draw out the poor country boy’s discomfort. Minseok could see it clearly on Kyungsoo’s face, he looked like he desired nothing more than to run away.

“What is that?” Baekhyun asked, pushing everyone to get to the door. Forever curious, yet still awkward in his human form.  

Minseok pointedly ignored him in favor of sizing Kyungsoo up – something about the boy caught his attention. Easy to startle. Easy to please. Would probably be gre–

“Yixing and Junmyeon!” Baekhyun exclaimed, throwing the door open. “You rogues, why are you here?”

Minseok crossed his arms over his chest, not pleased at the sudden turn of events. Junmyeon spelled trouble, no matter where or what was happening. He trusted him little given the turn of events he had been a part of.

“We decided it was better if we slept with a roof over our heads,” Junmyeon said, sauntering into the place.

Minseok made eye contact with Yixing, sharing a look of concern.

“Is the estate not to your liking?” he asked dryly, recalling the burning, smoldering building they had left.

“Is it to yours?” Junmyeon responded, quirking his eyebrow.

Minseok exhaled, attention turned back to Baekhyun. He desperately hoped that his friend wouldn’t say too much in front of Junmyeon. One could never be too careful.

His concern was misplaced, it seemed.

“His name is Chanyeol. Yes, big fellow.” Baekhyun ignored everything around him in favor of talking to Do Kyungsoo, gesturing with his hand to signal the height of the man he was looking for.

Minseok cleared his throat, diverting the attention back on him. “Thank you, Mr. Do, for bringing us groceries. Have a pleasant trip back.”

Kyungsoo’s mouth contorted in a half smile before he practically ran away, clearly thrilled to be free of the awkward atmosphere.

Once they were alone, Minseok stalked past his uncle, walking towards his machine. He cared little for the frivolous concerns of Junmyeon unless his uncle were to be honest with him, of course. He trusted him little, which was reason enough to ignore the man.

“Hey.”

Minseok glanced over his shoulder to see Lu Han standing, looking far too concerned about ….nothing. He was only working on his machine.

“Hey,” Minseok said in return, attention turned back towards the important matter at hand.

He stiffened, but only momentarily, when he felt arms wrap around his middle, hugging him tightly.

“You need to eat something,” Lu Han said softly, pulling Minseok to him.

“I’m fine.” Minseok didn’t pull away, but he didn’t give in either. He picked up another part of the machine, not caring that Lu Han was trying very hard to distract him.

“I need to–“

 

He couldn’t register it as a time slip, like a dream. As walking amongst the shifting of realities. He couldn’t compare it against his prior experiences because it _wasn’t_. It wasn’t what he had experienced. This shift, this sudden distortion of time and space – it was not exactly like the realities he had existed in.

One minute Lu Han was holding him, all ill will forgotten. Lu Han’s hands on his sides, on his waist, affectionate when he deserved little of it. And then another moment and everything had changed, warped far away from the cottage, from the tiny village away from the great house. Suddenly he couldn’t recognize the reality of the situation. Of any of it. But wasn’t that, in some ways, a given?

Lu Han was no longer next to him, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same warm hands on his waist, on his hips or shoulders. It wasn’t the same unfailingly pleasant target to flirt with. It was–

“Hill 937.”

A strange voice. Shouting. Humid. A jungle.

Minseok gasped, reaching for something, anything, coming up with nothing but wet leaves and the sounds of gunfire.

“Sergeant!”

_Screams._

Minseok gasped, eyes opening wide, registering the overcast sky that was barely visible through the jungle canopy. He couldn’t understand where he was, what was happening. Only screams. Gunfire. Pain.

“Sergeant!”

Minseok looked to his left, and then….

“Sergeant! Officer Kim Jongin reporting!”

A half-hearted salute amid a world of confusion. Minseok blinked up at him. Among the places he had been that he had dream walked to this– this seemed the most promising.

Eager eyes. Kim Jongin.

_Kim Jongin._


	30. The Key

Lu Han gasped, as Minseok's formerly upright body fainted in his arms and slunk to the floor between Lu Han's outstretched arms. 

"What the devil!?" he shouted, already crouching down. Minseok's face was contorted, his eyes closed shut. Small whimpers turned into loud groans. Lu Han tried scooping him up, but Minseok's body was uncooperative. He thrashed about for all the world like a madman, groans turning into soft cries of fear. 

Suddenly Yixing was by his side. "What happened?"

"I don't know?" said Lu Han. "One minute he was standing here talking to me, the next he just collapsed! Did he fall asleep?  _Can_  he fall asleep just like that?"

Yixing nodded. "It's happened before, but like this is particularly rare. Help me get him to his bed before he hurts himself."

Between the two of them, and Baekhyun who also ran into the room with a little shriek of surprise, they got Minseok to his room. Junmyeon did not assist but watched from the hallway with his arms crossed over his chest, yawning and tutting at this most indecorous display of manners. 

"What now?" asked Lu Han. "Do you have anything to stop it? Medicine? Anything?"

Yixing snorted and stared at Lu Han dumbfounded. "Have you forgotten everything already? The bulk of Minseok's pills and potions were lost in the fire. No, now we just wait."

"Wait?" cried Lu Han. 

"Yes, wait." His voice dropped to a whipser. "And I'll let you two do it because I don't trust Junmyeon to be left alone."

Baekhyun hummed softly. "About that, weren't you going to remain at the estate?" 

Yixing rolled his eyes. "That was the  _plan, yes_ , but..." His eyes darted fearfully towards the door, as if worried Junmyeon might come through them directly. "I'll tell you later when it's safe." 

He left, and Lu Han and Baekhyun just stared at one another. Minseok lay between them, body rocking side to side, legs and arms still thrashing. After one particularly violent outburst where he smacked Baekhyun right in the nose, Lu Han sighed. 

"Enough of this, I'll just wrestle him to sleep." 

Baekhyun's eyes widened. "What are you doing?" 

But Lu Han was already kicking off his shoes and throwing back the covers. He crawled right into Minseok's side and turned him to fit within his arms, big spoon, little spoon. He threw his leg over Minseok's hips, and folded the man's flailing arms across his chest. Then he nuzzled into the back of Minseok's head, close enough that Minseok couldn't hurt him too bad whenever he threw back his head. Lu Han would be bruised in no time, no doubt, but already the other man thrashed less. His groans did not cease, however, and from time to time he would jolt as if hit by an explosion. He began to mutter. Baekhyun sat up on the other side of the bed and held his shoulder, petting his hair. 

"I can't tell what he's saying, can you?" said Baekhyun. 

Lu Han shook his head. "No." 

Minseok's babbling continued, for how long Lu Han couldn't say. They heard only syllables, half phrases, shouts, and cries. 

_"Noo-_

_"Can't go on-_

_"Great-_

_"Can't breathe-_

_"Look out!_

_"Nooo!"_

Then, suddenly, Minseok began to cry. Baekhyun looked positively alarmed. Lu Han only felt the droplets where they fell upon his hands, tightly bound up with Minseok's hands. Baekhyun leaned forward to wipe them away. 

"He's going through hell, isn't he?" he asked. 

Lu Han grumbled. "Sounds like it." So he changed the subject, anything to distract them both. "So, what were you doing in Versailles anyways? How was... Marie Antoinette?" He smiled. 

Baekhyun practically smoldered at him. "Not as beautiful as the portraits make her out to be." 

"Hmm, I figured," said Lu Han. "Guess I'll find out someday." 

Baekhyun shook his head. "Yeah, this is so weird. I can't figure it out. How do you guys even  _do_  this kind of thing? One minute I'm a perfectly handsome human being, then I'm rat-"

"Which, _I_ heard was your fault."

"Ehhh, right. Mostly. Anyways. Now I'm human again but I'm dreaming?! That doesn't make sense. I'm not even blood related. I mean, I don't  _think_  I am? Oh dear sweet mother of mercy, you don't think I or someone in my family could be a..." he lowered his voice and his eyes darted fearfully towards the door, "a...a..  _bastard?"_

Lu Han laughed. "Given this family lineage and all their quirks, I'm sure it's possible." 

Baekhyun groaned. But any further inquiry Lu Han thought to make about Baekhyun's personal lineage was cut short when Minseok once again began to shake. He held him tighter, ignoring the fear in his gut over whatever Minseok must be going through right now - and also what would happen when he awoke. 

They didn't have to wait long. Minseok gave one last low shriek and jolted upright with such force Lu Han was pushed backwards. Baekhyun tried to grab him, but Lu Han whispered a loud, "Wait! No!" 

He sat up, pushing back the blankets as he took in Minseok's posture. He was still, sitting upright. His body no longer shook, and his eyes were open. He looked unusually calm, but he began to move his limbs sluggishly around, lifting one arm and looking at it, then the other. He did the same with his legs, touching himself with wonder as if he couldn't be sure they were there or not. Finally, he held his hands to his heart and pressed down.

"I'm alive," said Minseok, soft with wonder. "I'm not dead. I'm not dead. I'm not dead. I'm not-" 

"Minseok," said Lu Han softly. The man's head jolted around to look at him, and Lu Han did his best to seem reassuring. "You're not dead, you're fine. You're perfectly fine."

It took a moment for his eyes to focus. Lu Han could see the actual moment when Minseok recognized him. Then he looked at Baekhyun and also recognized him. He hopped off the bed with no warning. 

"Minseok, wait! You need to rest. You just had a terrible dream!" 

While Baekhyun tried to hold him back, Lu Han jumped off the bed and hurried around it to Minseok's side. He brushed his arm, but Minseok hissed and threw him off. He rounded on Lu Han, and he stared between them both. "A terrible dream?! Is that what you want to call it? A dream?! I was just blown to smithereens by a bomb after watching my  _entire squadron_ die in the exact same way! And you want to lecture me about a  _dream? No!"_

He pushed Baekhyun aside, but Lu Han grabbed him from behind, around the middle, in strangely the same position where this entire episode began. "Minseok! Wait!" he shouted, interlocking his fingers and holding on tight. Minseok struggled for only a moment, and then the fight went out of him. 

"Let me go, Lu Han," he said instead, almost sadly.

"Not until you tell us what happened. It's the not the first time that kind of thing has happened, right? Tell us what's different. And where you're going right now."

Minseok was silent, but he did not move. Instead he sighed and his body slagged the tiniest bit. Lu Han took that as a sign it was going to be okay, and he released his arms. It was only then he realized Minseok was still crying. 

"It's not just my squadron who died... I saw... I saw someone else there, someone I've never seen before." Still he seemed distracted. "What kind of place has jungles? What kind of war has weapons like that? They dropped them from the air, and there were these massive flying engines, like metal birds. And the bullets, and the smoke, and the smell..." 

Lu Han sat him back on the edge of the bed, Baekhyun on his other side, and they hugged him for a long time. Until Minseok finally said, "It was my great grandther. Kim Jongin. He was... shot right in front of me. And I watched him die, slowly. But he knew me. He talked to me in his last moments and it was the most horrible thing ever but he said he'd seen my entire future,  _every_  future, and... it wasn't long enough. We should have had more time. He was dying so painfully. But he told me... he told me where I could find him again, if I just look in the right places. He's the key, I always knew he was the key. The first of us to wander." 

He stood up again, but this time he didn't dart off. 

"The time machine. Right now. We've got to fix it. We've got to  _use_ it. Come on Lu Han, you signed a contract to help me. And this time I'm going to see to it that you do." 

 


End file.
